


Downfall: Runaway

by Tenukii



Series: Downfall [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Animal Death, Birthday, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 03:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13941168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenukii/pseuds/Tenukii
Summary: Prequel to “Downfall.”  Young prince Ben Solo has always tried to run away from anything that makes him uncomfortable—and squire Poe Dameron definitely makes him uncomfortable.





	1. Chapter 1

Said he doesn’t love you the wrong way  
And he don’t got a problem with anger  
But he’s got a problem coming his way  
Give me a reason, and I’ll be your danger

Hey Mama, I’m gone  
Can’t catch a never seen runaway  
Tell Papa his son  
Turned out to be a never seen runaway

-“Never Seen Runaway,” Jay Kill & the Hustle Standard

\--

On his thirteenth birthday, Prince Ben Solo decided to run away from home.

The night before, he dreamed about Poe Dameron, and that was part of it—not the only reason, but part of it all the same.  The dream was stupid and unremarkable, just that Ben was working on the boring lessons he had to complete every morning, and that Poe was sitting there beside him at the broad table in the castle library.  Poe had lessons too, even though he was two years older and a commoner, but never at the same time with Ben.  Yet there they were in the dream, reading together from the same book, and it didn’t feel strange at all. . . even when Ben looked up and found Poe’s wide, dark eyes gazing back, even when Poe smiled at him and the corners of Ben’s mouth curled upwards in response.

When Ben woke up, alone in his huge bed in the castle tower, the sun was rising and just beginning to send its first rays through his stained glass window.  He had a warm feeling in his chest, sort of like how he felt when he was galloping his horse across an open field or when he cast a spell successfully.  At first, Ben thought he had that feeling because it was his birthday, and that meant presents and hopefully a cake from the kitchen, but then he remembered the dream.  The glowing embers in his chest flared into an open flame, and Ben didn’t understand why.

And why had he dreamed about Poe in the first place?  Ben saw Poe almost daily, but he’d always felt vaguely resentful of the other boy—an orphan whom Ben’s mother, the queen, had taken in as a ward seven years before.  Ever since, Poe had occupied an odd position in the court: nowhere nearly as privileged as the prince, yet liked far better by almost everyone, at least the way Ben saw it.  Poe had to undergo a few of the same onerous duties as Ben, like the lessons in reading and mathematics and etiquette, but he also had a lot more freedom.  Ben was envious of that freedom, along with Poe’s numerous friends and his stunning good looks.  Now that Poe was a squire, destined to become a knight of Queen Organa at the age of twenty-one, he faced some dangers on the battlefield.  He also lacked the material possessions Ben enjoyed—fine clothing, games, jewelry, the soft bed Ben awoke in every morning—yet Ben thought that none of his assets could compare to the adoration Poe received from the rest of the court, without seeming to put forth any effort.

_Everyone loves him,_ Ben thought, scowling up at the mural painted on his ceiling, _more than they love me.  Even my own parents._   Because of that, he didn’t like Poe, not at all.  So why did a dream about Poe make him feel so happy?

Ben went over the dream carefully in his mind, wondering if he’d forgotten some detail.  But no, he had just been studying, and Poe had been sitting beside him, and they had looked at each other. . . and that was all.

_But he smiled at me, too,_ Ben remembered.  _He was happy to be there with me.  And. . . I was happy to be with him, although we’re not even friends.  He just looked so handsome, especially when he smiled. . . ._   Ben’s heart thumped against his ribs, and it stoked the fire in his chest.

“Stupid,” the newly teenaged prince growled aloud.  He rolled over and flung himself out of bed to get dressed for his birthday, thinking, _I don’t like him, and he doesn’t like me.  It was just a stupid dream._

\--

The day only got worse from there.

Breakfast was fine; one of the cooks had baked sweet rolls for Ben’s birthday, and the prince devoured three of them despite his mother’s disapproving glare.  (His father, King Solo, ate four, but he had the tact to sneak them when the queen wasn’t watching.)  However, at the end of the meal, Queen Organa announced that the royal parents had a Very Important Matter to discuss with their son, and Ben cringed.  Very Important Matters almost always meant bad news, as far as Ben was concerned.

After breakfast, Ben and his parents assembled in the throne room, where the queen conducted all official business.  Although this particular issue was private and the small family was otherwise alone, as usual the queen’s retainer Threepio joined them to record whatever Very Important Matter was about to transpire.  Ben stood in front of his parents’ thrones, arms folded and a scowl on his face, as the retainer sat down at his small desk and prepared to write.  The whole thing was intolerably fussy (rather like Threepio himself), and Ben wondered yet again why his mother had to make such a big deal out of everything.

“Now that you’re almost an adult,” Queen Organa told her son, “it’s time for you to begin preparing.”

“Preparing for what?” Ben grumbled.

“All the duties you’ll be taking on when you become a man,” she replied, “a man who will someday become the king.”  As much as Ben wanted to be grown up, and as happy as he was to be turning a year older, he _didn’t_ want to be the king, or to take on any more duties than what he already had.

“Mother, I’m _thirteen_ ,” he protested, “and you and Father aren’t _that_ old.  I won’t be the king for a long time.”

“That is very well, because with your attitude, you have a _long_ way to go before you’re mature enough to wield any kind of authority,” Queen Organa retorted.  Ben felt his cheeks grow warm in an indignant blush, which only grew when he glanced over at the retainer and saw the satisfied smirk Threepio wasn’t bothering to hide.  Like most of the court, he always seemed to enjoy seeing Ben get taken to task by his mother—the only person who dared do so.  Even the king rarely scolded his son, although his reticence was due less to indulgence and more because he just didn’t want to be bothered.  At the moment, for instance, King Solo appeared to be studying one of the tapestries adorning the throne room’s walls rather than listening to his wife and son argue.

Ben gave up and muttered, “Fine.  So what _else_ do I have to do now?  More lessons?  More useless classes in using the right fork and dancing with a bunch of stupid girls?”

Ignoring the latter question, the queen replied, “Yes, more lessons, but of a different kind.  Tomorrow, you will depart for my brother’s kingdom to begin instruction under him.”

Ben stared at her and stammered, “ _Wh-what?_ ” but Queen Organa went on without heeding him.

“Luke has mostly generously offered to continue training you in the method of swordsmanship he uses, as our father did before him.  He wrote me that when he showed you a few techniques the last time he visited, you demonstrated quite an aptitude for it, and he feels you can become an accomplished fencer— _if_ you learn to control your temper.”

That temper—for which Ben had been reprimanded many, _many_ times in the past—threatened to explode right then and there.

“What does _he_ know about me?” the boy snapped, his voice rising to a near shout.  “Maybe I don’t _want_ to learn to swordfight—at least not from _him_!”

“For God’s sake, Ben,” King Solo finally interjected with a bewildered, and almost disgusted, glance at the prince.  “At least hold your tongue until your mother is finished.”  Ben could imagine the words he left unspoken: _So we can get this over with, and I can go hunting._   Or riding, or whatever it was the king did on the days he spent away from the castle with his friends Lando and Chewbacca, escaping the very duties soon to be foisted on his son.  Ben glared at his father, and the queen took the opportunity to continue relating her Very Important Matter.

“There’s also the issue of your magical abilities,” she went on.  “I know you’ve been testing them, despite repeated injunctions not to.”

“So what?” snarled Ben.  He suspected that his mother had forbidden him to cast spells out of envy, her resentment that the powers possessed by her father and brother had skipped her, only to be inherited by her son.  Of course, Queen Organa always insisted that the no-magic rule was for his own good, because of the suspicion and fear most people held for magi, but Ben never really believed her.  _No one likes me anyway,_ he thought, _so why should I try to hide what I am just because they’re scared of it?_

“ _So,_ ” said Queen Organa, “if you’re going to be using magic regardless, you must learn now to do so responsibly, without casting spells at random and risking disaster.  Therefore, in addition to training you with your sword, Luke will also instruct you in honing your abilities so that you may put them to good use.”

That sounded a little better.  King Luke Skywalker was a highly-accomplished mage, and Ben felt a little thrill of excitement at the thought of learning new spells, as well as better control of the ones he could already perform.  Perhaps being sent away for a short time would be tolerable if it came with the chance for Ben to increase his abilities.

“All right,” he finally acquiesced.  “How long will I have to stay there?”

“You’ll be staying with your uncle and cousin for the next two years, until your fifteenth birthday,” replied the queen.  “After that—”

“Two _years?_ ”  Ben’s voice, which had begun to change soon after he turned eleven, broke in his distress.  “You’re sending me away for two whole _years_?”  The queen narrowed her eyes at the interruption and answered him with growing impatience.

“You’ll return for visits, of course—at Yuletide, and at least one other time during the year as well.  But Ben, this training isn’t something that can be accomplished overnight.  You’ll have to be patient and—”

“You’re just trying to get rid of me, aren’t you?” the prince interrupted again, out-and-out shouting this time and stomping his foot like a child for good measure.  “You’re tired of me, so you’re sending me away!”

“We’re certainly tired of your behavior,” Queen Organa retorted, but then her face softened a little and she sighed.  “But Ben, of course we’re not tired of _you_ , nor are we trying to get rid of you.  Believe me, I’ll miss you terribly.  However, this is the best course of action to give you the instruction you need—no one except my brother can teach you these things, and he can’t make the twelve-hour journey here every time you have a lesson.  Likewise, it would simply be impractical for you to travel back and forth between our kingdoms.  This is the best way.”

“Best for _you_ , maybe.”  In desperation, Ben turned to the king and appealed, “Father!  You can’t let her send me away!”  As Ben had expected, however, the king took his wife’s side in the matter.

“I agree with your mother, Ben,” King Solo told him.  “You need the discipline rigorous training will bring—and frankly, I don’t think anyone here is up to the challenge.  God save Luke, anyhow.  I always did think he was a little crazy.”  Ben glared at his father, but he wasn’t surprised.  _He always wants to do things the easy way, and getting rid of me is definitely easier than **him** trying to teach me anything,_ Ben sulked.

Meanwhile, Queen Organa doggedly tried to finish her spiel about the Very Important Matter.

“You’ll continue with your education, of course, having lessons with your cousin, the princess.”  She paused.  “Your school lessons, at least.  I’m afraid your etiquette training may suffer a bit, judging from Rey’s behavior the last time she was here, but we can make up for the lost time when you return.  At fifteen, you’ll still be a few years away from courting.”

Ben had scowled at the mention of his cousin Rey, who seemed to have all the freedom Ben lacked.  Whenever Ben complained that Rey usually got to do as she pleased, his mother responded with a litany of excuses for why King Skywalker treated his daughter so indulgently: she was a year younger than Ben, she was a girl, and—the trump card—her mother had died when Rey was very small, poor thing, and so Ben should have pity on her.  Ben saw absolutely no reason to pity Rey a dead mother she didn’t even remember, considering that everyone else in her entire kingdom adored the princess, but he knew better than to say so aloud.

However, Ben forgot all his usual complaints about Rey when he heard the word “courting.”

“What do you mean, I’ll be ‘a few years away from courting’?” he demanded.  “What does that have to do with anything?”

“If you hope to find a suitable wife,” Queen Organa informed him, “you _must_ improve your manners, not to mention your attitude.  Of course, there are women who will be drawn to you simply by the allure of someday becoming queen, but that isn’t the type of woman you’ll want to marry.  Accomplishment in swordsmanship will help make you more desirable, but it will take more than that for you to attract the right girl.”

Ben could only stare at her a moment, stunned and fuming. _I’m only thirteen!_ was all he could think at first.  _And barely even that.  I don’t even **like** girls. . . and I don’t want to fall in love.  I don’t **ever** want to fall in love!_

“I don’t _want_ to get married,” he managed to mumble.  “I _never_ want to get married.”  His father actually laughed, and when both Ben and Queen Organa glared at him, King Solo just kept smirking.

“Give it a couple years, Ben,” he chuckled.  “You’ll change your mind about girls.”

“No, I _won’t_ ,” the prince snapped.  “I don’t want to get married, I don’t want to be the king!  And I _don’t_ want to go away for some stupid training!”  The whole Very Important Matter had made Ben furious, and he started yelling, not thinking about what he was saying or caring about the consequences.  “You _are_ just trying to get rid of me, because you don’t love me!  If Rey were your child instead of me, it would be different—you’d never send _her_ away, but you don’t care about me at all!”

“Ben, be _quiet!_ ” the queen ordered in an attempt to stop the prince’s tantrum, but the admonition had little effect.  Ben barely even heard her.

“You know what?” he raged.  “I don’t care!  I don’t _care_!  I don’t love you either—I hate _both_ of you!  I hate everyone in the—the whole fucking court!”

Queen Organa, who scolded Ben for saying even “hell” or “damn,” clenched her jaw in fury nearly as potent as her son’s.  The king, on the other hand, bit his lip as if he were trying to suppress another smile.  The latter reaction wasn’t what Ben was going for, but his mother at least was scandalized.

“Go to your chambers, _now_!” she shouted back at him, half-rising from her throne and pointing in the direction of the door for good measure.  “You will stay there until dinner—where you’ll behave like the gentleman you utterly fail to be—and in the morning, you’ll leave for your uncle’s kingdom.  I don’t want to see your face or hear your voice until this evening, do you understand?”

“Fine!” Ben yelled.  “I don’t want to see you again at _all_ , _ever!_   If I go away, I’m never coming back!”  He turned and stormed out of the throne room, so angry he was near tears.

_They’ll be sorry when I go to Uncle Luke’s kingdom and don’t ever come home!_ he tried to comfort himself as he stalked toward the tower where his room lay.  The handful of servants he passed took one look at his face and scuttled out of his way.  _Or maybe I won’t even make it to Uncle Luke’s—maybe I’ll just. . . just jump out of the carriage and run away!_ Ben plotted. _I could become a highwayman like Father used to be._   _Everyone would be scared of me—they’d have a **reason** to hate me then!_

But just as Ben began to relax, mollified by imagining the revenge he’d take as the dreaded scourge of the highways, he heard a disgustingly cheerful voice calling his name.

“Prince Solo!”

It was Poe Dameron.  Ben hadn’t thought of him since that morning, when he had remembered, then forgotten about, his dream.  That all came rushing back at the sound of Poe’s voice, along with the excited warmth in Ben’s chest. . . quickly followed by a sinking sense of dread.  Ben turned around to see Poe hurrying down the corridor toward him, grinning.

“Happy birthday!  And congratulations!” the squire said.  For a moment, Ben was startled that Poe had remembered his birthday, but then he was just suspicious.

“Congratulations for what?” he asked the older, albeit shorter, boy.

“Yesterday, your mother told me that you would be going to train with King Skywalker!” Poe said, still with that obnoxious smile that showed his perfect white teeth and crinkled the tan skin around his equally perfect dark eyes.  “I’ve heard that King Skywalker is one of the best swordsmen _ever_ —you’re so lucky to get to train with him!”

A dozen thoughts crashed down upon Ben all at once, and all of them infuriated him.  First of all, his mother had really told _Poe Dameron_ all about her plan to send Ben away, before she had even talked to Ben himself about it?  Then Poe had the audacity to claim Ben was _lucky_ to be going?  Ben’s other realizations were even less coherent than those: _He’s smiling at me like he did in the dream, and he looks so handsome, and he remembered my birthday, and I may not see him again for two whole years except at Yuletide, and they wouldn’t send **him** away if he were their son, and my mother loves him more than she loves me because he’s perfect and not a disappointment to her, and **he** isn’t expected to marry some girl even though just about any girl would want to marry him because he’s so. . . so **wonderful**._

Ben suddenly wanted to hit Poe right in his beautiful, smiling face.  The prince had just enough presence of mind to restrain himself, knowing that it would only make things worse with the queen, but he still grabbed Poe’s shoulders and give the squire a hard shake.

“Go to hell!” Ben screamed at him, then shoved Poe away from him so hard, the smaller boy stumbled backwards a couple steps.  Poe’s smile dropped from his mouth in an instant, but he didn’t look frightened the way any other servant would.  He didn’t even look angry.  Instead, his pretty brown face fell into an expression of hurt confusion, almost sadness.

“What—” he began, but Ben cut him off with another shout.

“ _Go the fuck to hell, Dameron!_ ”

Ben turned and literally ran then, before Poe could say anything else, because Ben didn’t think he could stand to hear the squire’s voice again or to keep looking at his wounded face.  The prince reached the tower and pelted up the stairs to his rooms, pausing to catch his breath only when he was standing at his door.

_I can’t stand it,_ he shuddered, _I can’t stand to stay here another minute and just wait for them to send me away.  I couldn’t stand to go to dinner tonight and see my parents and—and **him**!_   Ben shook his head, tousling his chin-length black hair, then slammed into his chambers.  _I’ll run away **now** —they can’t get rid of me if I go first!_

The prince found the satchel-like bag he carried when he went on long horseback rides and threw in objects and clothing almost at random, with little thought to what might actually be useful.  He did however remember to attach his small knife in its scabbard to his belt.  The knife had been a gift from Ben’s uncle, received on his last birthday as a matter of fact, but Ben tried not to think about that. . . only that a successful highwayman would have to have a weapon.

Sneaking out of the castle was an easy task, and something Ben had done before.  He thought it would have been more adventurous to climb down the tower from the window in his chamber, but that window didn’t open, and anyway, it would be a rather long drop if he should fall.  Instead, he crept down the stairs and went along the small passages that led to one of the servants’ entrances to the back of the castle.  Apparently word hadn’t spread that he was to be confined to his room—or else the queen hadn’t even considered that Ben might disobey her orders—for the servants he encountered on the way simply bowed to him rather than attempt to stop him.

Once outside, Ben thought about taking his horse but then decided against it, as much as he loved the animal.  He didn’t want his parents to be able to accuse him of stealing from them: even though the gelding was basically Ben’s pet, he was still owned by the queen.  When it occurred to the prince that a highwayman wouldn’t be concerned with stealing a horse, Ben told himself that it wouldn’t be fair to the poor animal anyhow.  After all, the horse was used to a quiet, peaceful life of gentle rides and meals of oat mash; he wouldn’t thrive out in the real world where he would have to work for a living.

_And what about me?_ Ben wondered as he walked quickly away from the castle until he was hidden from view of its windows by the small outbuildings that surrounded it.  _How am **I** going to “thrive” out here?_   He pushed the thought away.  After all, if his idiot father had survived for more than thirty years living on the road, Ben could do it too.

He decided that it would be wise to put some distance between himself and the castle, and that he should begin his new career on the highways in the farther reaches of the kingdom.  If he were discovered to be missing, someone might search for him on the roads nearby, so Ben headed for the forest just beyond the grounds where the queen’s knights trained.  _I’ll cut through the woods,_ he planned, _and come out on the other side.  They won’t think to look for me in the forest!_

There was a reason for that: Ben never went into the forest.  He loathed the idea of hunting for sport—killing an animal for food was all well and good, but doing so for the hell of it was a waste of everybody’s time, particularly the animal’s—and a prince had no other business gadding about in the woods.  When he went riding, he did so in the fields and roads, so he had never learned how to navigate by the sun or any other method, nor had he been trained in any sort of survival skills.  That occurred to him as he pushed past the first bit of undergrowth and into the deep, dappled shade of the trees, but Ben again ignored the bit of apprehension he felt.

_There’s nothing out here to hurt me,_ he told himself, _just a bunch of deer too stupid to run when my father hunts them.  And the road goes by these woods on the other side, so they can’t be too wide.  If I just keep going in a straight path, I should cut right through them._

Ben assured himself of this at mid-morning, when the sun was about halfway along in the trek to its zenith.  That same sun had almost fallen completely out of view past the tops of the trees, and the dapples had become a solid block of shade, by the time Ben admitted that he was lost.  The sun wasn’t setting, not quite anyway, but the density and height of the forest meant that Ben’s vision was already becoming obscured.  He was tired, hungry and thirsty—he’d forgotten to pack any food or water—but most of all, angry.  He grumbled and swore from time to time at his parents or his uncle or Poe for putting him in this situation, but underneath, he was angry at himself.

The prince admitted that at about the same time he admitted his disorientation.  Ben plopped down on a fallen tree trunk to rest and glowered at his aching, booted feet.

_I’m an idiot,_ he thought.  _A stupid idiot.  Mother’s right—I need training, in **everything**.  And I need to grow up.  I can’t run away from that._   Ben still considered that he might never come home once he left for the Skywalker kingdom, but he would get his instruction from his uncle first.  _I’ll learn to fight and to use my magic—and I’ll learn how to control my temper.  Then, once I really know how to be a man, **then** I’ll go._   Lest he feel that plan wasn’t quite vindictive enough, Ben assured himself it would allow him to use his family, to take everything they offered him, to learn from it, and _then_ to turn on them.  He would still get his revenge for how they had treated him; he would just do so slowly.

If.

If he could find his way home.

Ben looked over his shoulder, back the way he had come.  He feared he hadn’t walked in a straight line at all—otherwise, how could he still be in the forest after all that time?—but he had no better strategy than to retrace his path.  He got up from the log, turned around, and started walking, making sure this time that he kept the sun in the same spot to his right so that he didn’t get turned aside.

_I can’t make it back before dark, though,_ Ben realized.  _I’ll have to spend the night out here. . . ._   That thought was even less appealing than the long walk home, but there was nothing for it.  He couldn’t risk walking at night, without the sun to guide him, and anyway, he was too tired to keep going for hours on end.  Besides, there was nothing out there to hurt him. . . right?

As if in reply, Ben thought he heard a noise, something besides birdsong and the occasional small rustle he knew to be caused by squirrels or other little animals.  He stopped and listened.  It came again, faint and distant: maybe a human shout, or maybe the sound of some larger, louder animal than a squirrel.  It _could_ be someone from the castle searching for him, but that wasn’t likely; it wouldn’t be dinner time yet, so for all his parents knew, Ben was still in his room.  More probably, it was a hunter or woodsman or. . . or somebody.  Not a larger animal.  Not anything _dangerous_.

Still, the farther Ben walked, the more noises he heard.  He wondered if perhaps he was just imagining them, especially as the sun sank lower and then vanished altogether as the sky’s blue deepened and darkened.  Even when nearly all light was gone, Ben didn’t stop.  He knew he was being stupid again, that he could easily lose his way, but suddenly that seemed less frightening than _stopping_ , than lying down and going to sleep and becoming an easy, stationary target for whatever it was that was making the noises which sounded sometimes like human shouts and sometimes like howls or snarls.  And then, as Ben staggered onward, he thought he heard rustling that wasn’t squirrels or his own feet in the years’ worth of dead leaves that carpeted the forest floor.  Something walking, something moving, something tracking him, something _coming_.

_Quit being a fool,_ the prince told himself, glowering into the dimming light and gripping the handle of his knife in its scabbard, just in case.  _Next I’ll be believing that there’s a ghost haunting this forest and—_

He heard a growl.  Definitely a growl, not a noise from anything rodent-like or cervine or human.  It sounded canine.

It sounded like a wolf.

_There aren’t wolves in this forest,_ remembered Ben.  _Father has never hunted **wolves** here, only deer.  **Maybe** it’s a fox, but foxes don’t hunt humans.  Do they?  No, of course they don’t—_

The thing growled again, somewhere behind him, and Ben made himself stop and turn and look just to prove to himself that it wasn’t a wolf, that it was a fox or maybe somebody’s lost dog or—

It was a wolf.

_It’s a fucking wolf,_ Ben thought, and, ridiculously, imagined how upset his mother would be if she knew he was swearing mentally.

The animal was some distance back, and he could barely see it in what little light remained, but it was looking at him, _straight_ at him, and it was walking toward him, stalking, _really_ stalking, not just skulking the way Ben himself skulked around the castle when he was in a bad mood.

_Except I’m never going to see the castle again,_ thought Ben, _because it’s going to eat me._

He knew not to run.  He remembered something about that from books, that running from a predator would only make it believe he was prey.  _I could climb a tree,_ he thought, _since wolves can’t climb trees—thank God it’s not a bear!_   But the trees around him were all trunk, the lowest limbs beginning at the height of several men standing on one another’s shoulders.  A woodsman probably could have climbed them, but not a prince who never lifted anything heavier than a light sword and never climbed anything steeper than the stairs to his room.

While Ben was thinking all of this, the wolf had kept stalking closer, had kept growling.  Ben still heard the other noises from time to time as well—maybe a human being really _was_ somewhere nearby—but they barely registered with him.  His brain was completely preoccupied with the animal that wanted to make him its dinner.

_I could stab it,_ Ben suggested to himself as he drew his knife in preparation.  But to stab the wolf, he would have to be close to it, within arm’s reach, and arm’s reach meant _mouth’s_ reach.  He would need to wait until the wolf literally pounced on him before he could strike it, and even then, he would only get one shot.  _And I don’t know how to fight with a knife,_ Ben realized, _just a sword.  Why didn’t I bring a sword?!_   Sword fighting a wolf, now _that_ was something even Uncle Luke had never done!

The wolf was still coming closer, and Ben wondered if he might be able to _throw_ the knife instead of stabbing with it.  That sounded like a better plan, but he would still only get one shot at it, and it still required waiting.  Ben hated to wait under normal circumstances, even when he wasn’t waiting to strike back against his own death, and he finally did the only other thing he could think of to do: he yelled at the wolf, hoping to scare it off.

“ _Go away!_ ” Ben screamed, as loudly as he could.  He made himself as big as he could, too, remembering that that worked on bears sometimes: he stood on his toes, raised his arms, and waved them around like the short, stocky court jester doing his imitation of the retainer in a panic.  The wolf cocked its head and pricked its ears, giving Ben the same sort of curious, condescending but patient look his mother sometimes gave him; then it proceeded toward him.  _I don’t mind if my dinner makes a fool of itself before I eat it,_ the wolf seemed to be thinking.

“ _Go **away!** ” _the prince shrieked again.  This time, the wolf didn’t even pause, but Ben heard the something else, the thing that sounded like a human cry.  He might have thought it was his own echo, except it was saying his name.

The prince called, “Hello?” with a tentativeness he hated, because it made him sound scared.  He heard nothing in response, but the wolf was stalking ever closer, so Ben finally squelched his pride and screamed, “ _Help!_ ”

“ _Prince Solo!  Ben!_ ”  That time, the prince was _sure_ it was a human voice, a man’s, and it was calling for him.  “ _Where are you?_ ”

_Stupid question,_ Ben thought.  _How am I supposed to know that?_   Nevertheless, he gave the equally stupid answer of “ _Over here!_ ” followed by an increasingly nervous “ _Help!_ ”  The wolf, perhaps irritated by Ben’s screeching, seemed to be losing its patience, and it increased its pace.  Despite his determination not to run, Ben began walking backwards, glancing down from time to time to be sure he didn’t fall.  The wolf broke into a trot, then an easy lope, and it closed the distance between itself and the young prince with disconcerting speed.

“Get back!” Ben screamed at it as he stumbled, though without falling.  “Go the hell away you—you stupid beast!”  He was just about to try throwing his knife at it after all, when an inglorious crash sounded in the undergrowth somewhere behind the wolf.  The animal finally paused and looked back over its shoulder as someone stumbled into view between two trees, panting Ben’s name.

He wasn’t a man, exactly, but a boy.  He was Poe Dameron.  Of course.

_Of-fucking-course,_ Ben thought.  For a second, he considered that getting eaten by a wolf might be preferable to getting rescued by Poe, but then the wolf decided that Poe looked more appetizing than Ben—or at least, like more of a threat.  It turned, growling with its fur bristling, and faced the squire instead of the prince.

“Ben!” Poe gasped.  His dark eyes flicked from the wolf to Ben, then back to the animal.  “Are you all right?”

How was Ben supposed to answer that?  “Yes, I’m fine, just scared shitless and about to be dinner”?  He shortened that to “I’m fine” as he made himself take a step forward.  The wolf didn’t pay him any attention and began to advance on Poe.  The squire winced, fear plain on his handsome face, but he drew a short sword from the scabbard he wore and half-crouched with it at the ready.

“Run,” he hissed at the prince, still glancing between him and the wolf.  “To your right—turn to your right and run straight.  The road’s half a mile away—I don’t know what this thing’s doing so close to the highway—but you’ll be safe there.  The others are looking for you.”

Most of that information sailed right past Ben’s head; all that stuck was, _I’m half a mile from the road,_ and, _He thinks I’m a coward that will just run away._   And then, _I **am** a coward.  I **did** run away.  And Poe is about to take on a wolf, and probably lose, to save my life._

“I’m not going to run away,” Ben growled, sounding rather like a wolf himself.  He looked down at the knife still in his hand, then drew back like he were about to throw a ball.  He knew it was hopeless even before he lurched forward and pitched the knife in the wolf’s general direction, but it was doing _something_ , something other than running.  The knife sailed through the air, point first, and landed about a foot to the left of the wolf’s shoulder—closer than Ben had expected, at least.  The wolf gave the small weapon a desultory look then turned back to Poe.  It was perhaps a yard away from the squire when its stalking shifted into something even worse: the wolf crouched, head down, fur standing up on its neck and back, preparing to pounce.

“ _Run!_ ” Poe shouted at Ben, not risking another look at the prince as he readied his sword.  It shook a little, but Poe himself never faltered.  He was ready for the improbable sword-fighting-with-a-wolf, ready to die for his prince.

_Of course he is, because it’s his job,_ Ben thought. _He’s sworn to protect my mother and her family, even if it means he’ll never grow up to become the knight he’s always dreamed of being._   Ben had felt guilt before, but never guilt like _this_ , when he realized that another human being was going to die for him—not out of necessity but due to Ben’s own selfishness.

_I don’t want to go train with Uncle Luke, and I don’t want to get married, and I don’t want to be the king.  But those things are my duty, and I ran away from them.  I ran when I wasn’t going to die.  The worst that can happen is that I’ll end up bored, in an unhappy marriage. . . that I’ll end up like my parents.  But Poe’s duty is to protect me, and he **isn’t** running away.  He could die, and he still isn’t running away._

And yet, what else could Ben do _but_ run?  He had no weapon left, and even if he managed to retrieve his knife, he stood even less chance than Poe of stopping the wolf with it.  _I’m useless,_ the prince thought in misery.  _I can’t protect him, or even myself, not until Uncle Luke teaches me how to fight with my sword and my. . . my magic._

Ben’s magic was the one thing he _did_ have, and he’d forgotten it until then.  He didn’t know how to fight with it, or how to do much of anything useful for that matter—but one spell he had figured out all on his own was that of telekinesis.  He could pick things up magically, he could throw things. . . and the one thing Ben Solo excelled at was _throwing things_.  He threw things hardest when he was angry, so he summoned up all the anger he could muster, all the rage he had built up throughout the day combined with hatred for the animal now threatening the boy willing to die for him.  But the crowning glory of Ben’s anger was his disgust and loathing for himself, for the selfishness that had put him and Poe in this situation.

Just as the wolf sprung from its crouch into the air, Ben hissed the words to the spell with his arm lifted, fingers splayed and pointed at the animal.  He arrested its movement at the apex of its trajectory, and if the wolf was surprised to find itself suspended in midair, Ben couldn’t tell.  Poe, though, looked stunned.  He had gathered himself below the wolf, ready to strike up with his sword, and now he huddled there with his deep brown eyes wide and staring up at the animal.  Ben didn’t have the power yet to hold the wolf there long, and he flicked his hand to the side.  His movement was almost casual, but it sent the animal hurtling through the air, into the trunk of a tree some distance to Ben’s right.  He thought the impact must have broken the wolf’s back, judging from the sounds he heard and the odd angle at which the wolf’s body lay when he released his hold and it crashed to the ground.  Stupidly, Ben felt sorry for it, even though it would have showed no such compunction at killing him.  _I put it in this situation too,_ he thought.  _It wouldn’t have had to die if I hadn’t run away. . . ._

The prince almost forgot all about the animal when he looked back at Poe.  Now the squire was staring at Ben, eyes still wide, but his look of horror had turned to one of mixed confusion and wonder.  Did Poe realize what Ben had done?  He must have, surely he must, even though Ben had been careful never to use magic in front of the other boy or to let on that he possessed such abilities at all.

Maybe Poe thought wolves sometimes went sailing through the air all on their own; or maybe he believed an angel had saved him, or some other kind of miracle, anything but the gangly, awkward, sullen boy before him, because he looked away from Ben then without demanding an explanation.  Poe lowered his head and dropped his sword, slumping forward to brace himself on his palms and draw a long, deep breath.  After that, the squire stumbled to his feet, took up the sword again and sheathed it, and made a few faltering steps toward Ben.

“You’re really all right?” Poe asked, his voice barely above a whisper so that Ben could hardly hear him.  The prince moved closer to the other boy, until they stood only an arm’s length apart.

“Yes,” said Ben.  Poe nodded, looked down, then raised his eyes back to the prince’s face.

“What did you do?”  He really was whispering now, and the whisper shook.  “What did you do to it?”  Ben’s hope, that Poe was stupid enough to overlook what had happened, faded.

“Nothing,” the prince muttered.  He tried to look away from the intent gaze emanating from beneath Poe’s dark lashes, and failed.

“You cast a spell on it, didn’t you?” Poe accused.  “You. . . you’re a mage.”

“No, I didn’t,” protested Ben, beginning to panic.  “No, I’m—I’m _not_.”  His voice cracked on the last word, and his humiliation and self-loathing grew a little stronger.  Poe heaved a sigh and bent his head again, shaking it so that the dark brown curls of his glossy hair danced.

“Never mind.  It doesn’t matter, except that you’re safe.  They’re looking for you—we’ve all been looking for you for hours.  _Hours_ , ever since the queen had your lunch brought to your room, and you weren’t there _._ ”  Poe raised his head again, and his luminous eyes had hardened.

“God, you little _fool_ ,” Poe groaned, even though Ben was taller than he was despite being younger.  “You could have been—been killed!  _Eaten!_ ”  Ben bristled at what he thought was condescension in the older boy’s voice, but before he could think of any kind of retort, Poe crossed the distance between them, threw his arms around the prince’s shoulders, and hugged him tightly.

“I was so worried about you,” Poe mumbled, cheek pressed against Ben’s neck.  Ben went completely limp in Poe’s embrace, eyes opened wide and lips parted in stunned silence.  When Poe didn’t immediately let him go, Ben lifted his arms to hug Poe’s small body closer, and he let his eyes fall closed.  It was like his dream, but better, because Poe was holding him and it was _real_.  Ben felt as if something like warm water was seeping through his chest, the way drowning must feel, but pleasant. . . happy.

Poe was still talking; he whispered, “Ben, don’t _ever_ disappear again, _please_.  I thought you were gone forever.”

Leaving forever had been Ben’s intention—and up until that instant, it had _still_ been his intention, just deferred until after his uncle’s training.  But the mixture of tired relief and pleading in Poe’s voice shook Ben to the depths of his soul.

_He would have missed me.  If I never came back. . . Poe would have missed me._   Even more monumental than that realization was the happiness Ben felt because of it, the same happiness he had felt in his dream.  Ben _wanted_ Poe to miss him, as much as Ben would miss Poe in the two years during which he would be gone.

_I’ve fallen in love with him,_ Ben realized.  _That’s what’s happened, that’s why I dreamed about him and the dream made me feel so good.  I. . . I love Poe._   For an instant, the thought made him happy, deliriously so, although only that morning he had sworn he’d never love anyone.  For that instant, it didn’t matter that Ben was really still just a boy or that Poe was another boy or that any sane adult would tell him he couldn’t possibly be in love, because he was far too young even to know what love was.  It didn’t matter because Ben _knew_ , he knew exactly what love was, and he knew he loved Poe Dameron and always _would_ love Poe Dameron.

Unaware of any of the prince’s chaotic thoughts, Poe hissed, “ _Promise_ , promise me you won’t run away again.”

“I promise, Poe,” Ben mumbled.  “I won’t run away anymore.”

Ben kept the literal meaning of his promise; he never again tried to run away from home, not even from the temporary home of his uncle’s castle, where he spent the next two years learning the twin arts of swordsmanship and magic.  But he broke the real promise, the one he’d made silently to Poe in his heart, no more than ten minutes later, once he and Poe were back on the highway with the knights who had been sent to find him.  Mounted on the extra horse they’d brought, conscious of the quiet mutters among the knights leading the way—knowing, of course, that they were complaining about having to waste their afternoon searching for him—Ben realized how stupid and naïve he’d been to think he could ever be with Poe Dameron.

Poe had been glad to find him safe; Poe really might even miss him when he was gone.  But how could Ben ever hope that Poe _loved_ him?  Even now, Poe was already riding apart from him, close to the knights whose ranks he would join in six short years.  Ben was only the prince to Poe, the son of Poe’s beloved Queen Organa and nothing more.

And even if Poe _had_ loved him, a thousand other difficulties stood between them: chief of which, Poe was a man, or would be one soon.  Ben’s parents expected him to marry a girl, a woman who could someday be his queen and bear a child to be his heir.  Not only was Poe a man, he was the _perfect_ man, an ideal Ben could never hope to attain himself.  Even though that was part of why Ben loved Poe, he resented the squire for it too, and that resentment grew as he glowered at Poe’s back all the way home.

By the time they returned to the castle, Ben was in control of himself again, and he refused to speak to Poe except to thank the squire, formally, for rescuing him after they had explained to the queen and king what had transpired.  Both boys left out the part about the wolf’s flight and abrupt landing; Poe was as aware as Ben of how most of the court viewed magic.  Poe lied—with surprising eloquence for a boy who was notoriously honest—that, acting together, they had managed to scare the wolf away.  Ben did not dispute the falsehood since Queen Organa was furious enough at him without knowing he had cast a spell with Poe as a witness.

The queen restrained some of her anger before Poe and the knights, but Ben could see the suppressed rage flashing in her dark eyes when she insisted he express his gratitude to Poe for the squire’s help.  Ben did so without protest, but he turned away from Poe immediately after.  The hurt look in Poe’s eyes, identical to the look Ben had witnessed earlier that day, haunted the prince, but the next morning he departed for his uncle’s kingdom without seeing Poe to say goodbye.

Ben returned home for only three visits over the next two years, once at each Yuletide and once for his fourteenth birthday.  When he encountered Poe, they met each other with glares and subtle insults.  Those continued once Ben was home for good at age fifteen, and he went on loving Poe through it all—resenting Poe for it, hating himself for it, but loving Poe all the same.  When Ben was paired with noblewomen’s daughters at the balls he was forced to attend, he imagined dancing with Poe in his arms instead; when he competed in fencing tournaments, he imagined fighting to win Poe’s favor.  When Ben lay alone in bed at night, ravaged by the new desires that came with adolescence, he imagined doing with Poe all the sordid things he’d read about in certain forbidden books in his parents’ and uncle’s libraries, the rare ones kept for their value but stored on the highest shelves and never discussed in polite company, due to their content.  They were political satires mostly, but graphic ones, and while most of them involved men doing unspeakable things to women, one or two particular volumes discussed men who took for lovers other men, and those Ben hid in his room and read over and over until he knew some passages by heart.

But when Poe was present, when Ben had to face him, the prince treated him with such scorn and derision, he was sure Poe must hate him.  Ben felt some pride in himself then, because he had hidden his feelings so well that no one could ever suspect that he still got that warm, flooded feeling in his chest when Poe looked at him, or that once Ben dreamed that he _did_ marry and that Poe was his bride, and when Ben awoke, he wept tears of frustration and misery.

If Queen Organa sometimes watched Ben and Poe’s bickering with a certain knowing expression, or if the princess Rey sometimes asked Ben pointed and incessant questions about the squire when she visited, it surely wasn’t because they suspected anything.  They _couldn’t_ , Ben reasoned, because he was so very _careful_.

Still, just to be sure, the prince decided he needed to prove once and for all—to everyone save himself—that he hated Poe Dameron.  He chose as that occasion Poe’s eighteenth birthday, the date when, although he would not be a knight for three years yet, Poe would become a man.

\--

To be continued


	2. Chapter 2

Heartbreak’s got me breaking down the past instead of building today.

-”Never Seen Runaway,” Jay Kill & the Hustle Standard

\--

Unlike Ben’s birthday, Poe’s had always gone unremarked; after all, Poe was only a commoner, hardly better than a servant.  The year Poe would turn eighteen, however, Queen Organa decided the squire deserved a celebration.  Ben could understand—the young people of the kingdom were considered adults at eighteen, and Poe _had_ lived in the castle for ten years now—but he resented it all the same.  The queen announced one week in advance that they would hold a banquet in Poe’s honor on the night of his birthday, and then the entire court spoke of nothing else for the next seven days.  They’d never made such a fuss over Ben’s birthday, or Ben’s anything else for that matter.

The announcement of the banquet spurred Ben to make his decision, and he vowed to himself that that night, he would refuse to participate.  Oh, he would _attend_ the banquet, but he wouldn’t eat, he wouldn’t speak, he wouldn’t do _anything_ to “celebrate” the boy who had tormented him for the last three years.  Ben himself was sixteen now, barely, and his plan felt infantile even to him.  Nevertheless, he was tired of how his mother looked at him whenever Poe was around, with that obnoxiously knowing little smile she had, as if to say, “You can’t deceive _me_.  I know how you really feel.”

_I’ll show her,_ Ben thought, _I’ll make her think he doesn’t mean anything to me at all—and him too.  He won’t ever look at me again the way he still does sometimes, with those pretty eyes all soft, like he wants to be my friend. . . ._   Because he couldn’t be friends with Poe, he _couldn’t_.  Friendship would never be enough, and Ben would only want more—and Poe would know it, and then they couldn’t even be friends anymore, because if Poe knew what Ben felt, he’d hate Ben as much as Ben pretended to hate _him_.

And yet, the eve of Poe’s birthday, Ben lay awake long into the night.  In spite of all his bitterness and resentment, guilt consumed the prince.  He only wanted to prove himself, not to hurt Poe’s feelings or ruin his birthday.  Ben told himself that he _wouldn’t_ hurt Poe, that Poe didn’t care about him or what he did at all, but he worried all the same.

Eventually, Ben hit upon a solution: he would give Poe a birthday present—anonymously, of course.  Poe never got presents for his birthday, and even amidst all the banquet preparations, Ben hadn’t heard his mother or anyone else speak about getting gifts for Poe that year either.

_That way,_ Ben thought, _I can get everyone off my back, and Poe will still be happy._   He wasn’t sure just what sort of present Poe would like, but he resolved to find something in town the next day.  The prince finally fell asleep with a clear conscience, more or less.

Ben was up and dressed earlier than usual the next morning, and he slipped away from the castle and into the town that surrounded it.  Some high-end shops clustered near the castle, and Ben passed a few other members of the court as he wandered the High Street.  He knew—from lessons, not experience—that rougher, cheaper shops and taverns could be found on the edges of the town, and beyond that were the little houses where the peasants lived.  Poe had come from one of those, Ben supposed, but the prince had no desire to venture in that direction.  If he was going to give Poe a gift, it had to be something magnificent, something worthy of the object of a prince’s affection. . . even if that prince normally gave Poe nothing but scorn.

Everyone Ben passed recognized him, pausing to nod or even bow to the young prince.  He had tried to dress casually to avoid attention and had even pulled his black hair—now grown down to his shoulders—back in a severe ponytail to hide its length.  However, he drew stares all the same, rare as it was for a member of the royal family to leave the castle grounds.  Still, Ben mused as he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the wavery glass of a shop window, he liked the way he looked with his hair tied back: stern, older than his sixteenth years, and like the kind of prince he wanted to be.

But that window held nothing that seemed right for Poe, nor did any other window he passed.  Most of the trinkets on display were aimed at amusing ladies rather than men, and although there were two book shops, Ben didn’t know what sort of things Poe liked to read, if he even read for pleasure at all.  Ben realized he didn’t know what Poe liked to eat, either, when he encountered a bakery and sweet shop, and anyway, Poe was a favorite in the castle’s kitchen and could probably get any food he desired just by batting those long, dark eyelashes of his.  For a moment, Ben got distracted from his search by the thought of those lashes and the way they always half-covered Poe’s warm brown eyes; then he shook himself and walked on.

The prince considered buying Poe something to wear, from among the few ready-made garments he found at a tailor’s, but then he remembered just how small Poe was.  _Anything I got him probably wouldn’t fit,_ Ben thought, _and there isn’t time to have it altered now. . . even if I could guess at his measurements._   Ben had almost given up hope of finding anything at all when he glanced into the window of the jeweler who kept shop next door to the tailor.  Poe being a man, Ben hadn’t even considered giving him jewelry, but some of the items on display looked quite masculine, and Ben certainly didn’t have any better ideas.

At first, the jeweler didn’t notice Ben, being preoccupied with helping an elderly noblewoman try on rings.  The prince slipped past the shop’s vast selection of jewelry for ladies to the men’s items near the back.  The displays held quite a few rings, but thinking of Poe’s small, perfectly-formed hands, Ben wasn’t sure any of them would fit him.  Besides, wearing a ring while jousting and fighting might not be very comfortable.  Unlike a few of the more effete noblemen (the queen’s retainer included), Poe’s ears weren’t pierced, which left Ben with only necklaces to choose from.

_But that might work,_ the prince decided as he looked them over.  A necklace wouldn’t interfere with Poe’s duties as a squire or future knight, but would accentuate his neck and pronounced collarbones.  Some of the necklaces were too large and gaudy for Ben’s taste, composed of thick herringbone links or weighted down with pendants crusted in jewels.  But then Ben’s eyes fell on a far more delicate fine silver chain.  The workmanship of the elegant necklace was superior, and Ben imagined how beautiful it would look against the tan skin of Poe’s neck and his clavicle.

“A-ah, Prince Solo!” cried the jeweler, startling Ben so that he simultaneously jumped and cringed.  It didn’t help matters that the old man was partially deaf and so spoke in a loud, grating voice.  Ben turned to see the jeweler approaching, but the shop was otherwise empty; the noblewoman had left, sparing Ben at least some of his embarrassment.

“I had no idea you were here!” the jeweler went on as he toddled over to where the prince stood.  The old man supported himself on a cane topped with an enormous hunk of agate and peered up at the much taller boy through the magnifying monocle he wore for examining jewels.  “How many I assist you, your highness?  Is there something you would like?”

“Um,” mumbled Ben, hoping he wasn’t blushing.  “I’d. . . I’d like to buy this.”  He jabbed a finger at the necklace he’d been admiring, then remembered to add, “Please.”

“Oh, are you sure you want that one, your highness?” the old man asked.  He stuck his head forward on his wizened neck like a turtle peering out of its shell to examine the chain.  “It’s hardly ornate enough to be worthy of a prince!  And if I may say so, it’s far too light for your skin, as pale as you are.”  Glancing up to see Ben’s frown, the jeweler stammered, “Er, I mean, your coloration is too. . . um. . . the necklace is just all wrong.”

“It isn’t for—” Ben began then cut himself short as he thought, _If I tell him it’s for someone else, he’ll wonder why I’m buying jewelry for another man!_   He amended, “I like it.  I’m sure, it’s the one I want.”

“Oh, er, if your highness is certain. . . .”  The jeweler unfastened the necklace and lifted it off the display.  “Would you like to wear it, or should I wrap it for you?”

“Erm, wrap it.  Please,” Ben muttered.

“Yes, your highness.”  The old man shuffled over to the counter and produced a small satin bag, in which he placed the necklace.  He took a frustratingly long time to tie a silk ribbon about the bag’s neck to hold it shut, but it _did_ make the gift into a rather pretty presentation.  Ben hoped Poe would be impressed.

When the jeweler held out the packaged necklace to Ben, the prince took it and asked, “How much does it cost?”

The old man’s eyes widened, and he stammered, “Oh, no, nothing, nothing at all for you, your highness!  I wouldn’t dream of charging—”

“I’m going to pay for it!” Ben interrupted, sounding ruder than he’d intended out of embarrassment.  Did the kingdom’s shopkeepers really think he expected to demand whatever he wanted, for nothing?

“Really, your highness, you don’t have to—”

“How.  Much,” Ben demanded.  The jeweler finally quoted him a price that sounded like it might be too low, but Ben didn’t really have much concept of what things cost.  Besides, he just wanted to get out of the shop and back to the castle at that point, so he paid the amount the man told him.  Once the prince finally escaped, he shoved the necklace into his pocket and hurried home.

\--

That evening, Ben took more care in dressing than he had ever spent before: he wanted to look both mature and above such things as birthday celebrations.  The tunic he put on wasn’t quite his best—that was too fancy for the occasion—but it was nicer than what he usually wore.  He pulled his hair back again too, having decided to keep wearing it that way.

_I look older,_ the prince decided as he studied himself in the ornate mirror that hung over his dresser.  _At least as old as Poe is!_   He took out the silver necklace he’d bought, examining it for the fifth or sixth time that afternoon, then carefully tucked it back into its bag and retied the ribbon into as tidy a bow as he could manage.

_But how am I going to make sure he gets it, without him knowing it’s from me?_ Ben wondered as he tucked the gift into an outside pocket hanging from the leggings he wore under the thigh-length tunic.  He didn’t trust any of the castle servants to give the bag to Poe without looking inside (or, in some cases, stealing the necklace outright). . . and anyway, he didn’t want any middleman to know he was giving Poe a birthday present.

_I guess I could leave the banquet early and go put it in his room, so he’ll find it when he goes to bed,_ Ben decided.  He dug around in one of his drawers to find the skeleton key he had once stolen from Threepio—not for any particular reason, just to see if he could do it without getting caught.  He could, and the retainer had spent the next week in a panic over the key he thought he’d lost, until Queen Organa ordered a replacement made, just to shut Threepio up.  Ben had never used the key before, but he had been saving it in case he thought of something to do with it.  He’d never imagined that something would be breaking into Poe Dameron’s room.

With the key stashed in his pocket next to Poe’s gift, Ben left for the banquet hall.  Even though he was a little early, he could hear the loud conversation and laughter of some of the knights as he approached.  The prince scowled, remembering that his mother had graciously invited her knights to attend.  He disliked the knights; they were as a rule rowdy and uncouth whenever the queen or other ladies weren’t present.  Ben didn’t enjoy the way they sometimes teased him, nor did he enjoy thinking about Poe becoming like them one day: as much as Ben tried to deny it, there was something special about Poe, something different, that belied his low birth.  Ben didn’t want that thing to be spoiled, as he was sure Poe’s initiation into knighthood would do.

The prince sighed as he paused outside the hall doors; then he straightened his shoulders, tilted his chin up ever so slightly, and entered the hall with the most disdainful bearing he could manage.  No one paid any attention to him, if they noticed him at all, but for once, he was glad of it.  The long table was set for a score of diners, and at least half of the seats along the sides were already filled with men, Poe’s future comrades.  Threepio was bustling about, fretting and trying to keep order, but neither Poe nor the queen and king had arrived yet.

Finally, Threepio noticed Ben and fluttered over to him, murmuring, “Oh, Prince Solo!  You’re to sit here, at your mother’s left.”

“Her left?” Ben muttered as he followed the retainer to his seat.

“Yes—Poe will sit at her right tonight, of course, since the banquet _is_ in his honor.”

“Oh.  Yes.  Of course,” grumbled Ben.

He had barely sat down when his mother herself arrived. . . with Poe on her heels.  The other men cheered, Poe flushed with pride, and Ben glowered.  Queen Organa came to take her seat at the head of the table, and she actually smiled at her son.

“Ben, you’re not late,” she observed, which the boy supposed was intended to be a kind of praise.  He started to retort something scathing, then remembered that he intended to speak as little as possible.  He ignored his mother and instead looked across the table to watch Poe as the squire came to sit in the spot usually reserved for the prince.

Poe looked stunning, as always.  He had combed his dark brown, wavy hair with water to tame it, but it was already fluffing up into soft curls again as it dried.  His eyes were the color of the hot chocolate drink the kitchen made for Ben in wintertime, warm and sweet, and they fairly glowed with excitement.  Worst of all, Poe’s cheekbones were still flushed, accentuating the light tan color of his skin.

_No man should be that beautiful,_ Ben thought, scowling as his heartbeat quickened and the familiar tension he hated filtered into his groin.  Then Poe looked at him, those chocolate-colored eyes met Ben’s, and the prince’s heart soared.

Poe pressed his lips together and directed a terse nod at the prince.  Ben averted his eyes.

The first half-hour or so of the banquet was tolerable.  Ben slumped against the high back of his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and refused to eat any of the food on the plates set in front of him, even though it all smelled wonderful and his stomach felt woefully empty.  He did give in and sip at the wine poured for him, since his mother didn’t normally allow him to have it.  Ben exercised the utmost caution to drink it slowly and in moderation—God only knew what he might say to Poe if he got drunk—but on an empty stomach, it made him feel slightly dizzy nevertheless.

When he was certain he wasn’t being observed, Ben watched Poe, glaring outwardly while his insides burned.  Poe ignored him—or rather than deliberately ignored him, Poe didn’t look at him, since Ben doubted the squire even remembered his presence.  Queen Organa remembered, however, and when several stern glares had no effect on Ben’s attitude, she clamped a hand down over her son’s and leaned forward.

“Prince Solo,” she hissed, “stop sulking and eat your dinner.  Your behavior is embarrassing to me, and offensive to Poe.”

“I’m not hungry,” Ben protested, “and no one is paying the least attention to my behavior.  It’s not _my_ birthday.”  The small, ringed hand over his clenched a little tighter, and Ben winced.  How did such a petite woman have such a strong grip, anyway?

“ _Ben_ —”

“Your majesty, if I may interject. . . .”  At the sound of Poe’s voice, amused and playful, Ben’s eyes shot from his mother’s face to the squire’s.  Poe was looking at him now, smiling.  “Prince Solo isn’t offending me at all.  It’s perfectly understandable that he’d be unhappy tonight.”

Ben forgot all about his resolution not to speak.  He snatched his hand away from his mother’s and leaned forward over the table to snarl at Poe, “Oh _really?_   What, pray tell, do _you_ understand about _me?_ ”

Unperturbed, Poe replied, “When I was sixteen, I couldn’t wait to become a man either.  Don’t worry, your highness, I’m sure the next two years will fly by, and before you know it, you won’t be a boy anymore.”  He grinned, and Ben seethed.

Ben still didn’t eat anything, and his mother gave up on forcing him.  Poe started looking at the prince more often, but only to smirk, and each time their eyes met, Ben’s chest and stomach and groin all knotted a little tighter.  He wanted to jump Poe and take his revenge, but Ben wasn’t sure whether such revenge would entail slugging Poe or kissing him.  Maybe both.

Still, Ben managed to restrain himself until his mother got up from her chair and moved to the other end of the table to speak to Ben’s father.  The king, at least, seemed to be having a good time, not because he enjoyed celebrating Poe’s birthday, but because he enjoyed the eating and drinking that accompanied it.  Once the queen was out of earshot, the older knights near Poe took the opportunity to tease him.

“So you’re a man now, eh, Dameron?” the one beside Poe chuckled.  When Poe shrugged and grinned, the knight went on, “But are you _really?_ ”

Poe blinked and looked as confused by the comment as Ben felt, until another man seated two spots down from Ben piped up, “Nah, he ain’t a man _yet_.  Young Dameron’s too courteous to have lain with a girl before he came of age!”

_Oh shit,_ Ben thought.  Poe’s face turned the reddest Ben had ever seen it, and the prince was certain he was blushing just as hard.  He slouched farther down in his chair, simultaneously grateful that the knights were ignoring him and furious that they dared say such things in front of him—or to Poe.

“Well, Dameron, is he right?” the man next to Poe asked.

“I—er, well, yes,” Poe stammered, “I. . . I haven’t. . . .”

The older man laughed, “Ah, no need to be ashamed—we all know what a good boy you were.  But that will all change tonight, eh, as soon as we’re done here?  I can recommend a fine tavern where you’ll have no trouble finding a lass willing to usher you into manhood.”

“With _his_ looks,” the second man snorted, “he wouldn’t have trouble with any lass, _anywhere_!”  Everyone within earshot laughed uproariously—everyone except Ben and Poe.  Poe grinned, shyly, and blushed all the way down his neck.  Ben seethed.

The prince weighed his options: he could order the men to stop discussing such an inappropriate topic over dinner, but that would mean breaking his self-imposed vow of silence.  It would also, he realized, open him up to further accusations of jealousy.  He could just imagine how Poe, not to mention the older knights, would mock him for his perceived desperation to have intercourse with a girl.

_Like I’d want to bed some filthy wench,_ Ben sulked as he decided not to intervene, as furious as the conversation made him.   _Poe can keep them—he can fuck every girl in the kingdom if he wants to!  He’s probably as beautiful below the waist as he is above the shoulders, and they’ll be lining up to—_ Ben’s thoughts became a tangle of confused anger and bitterness, and for some reason, he felt almost like crying.  The other knights finally stopped their teasing when the queen returned to her place at the head of the table, although the one beside Poe nudged the squire from time to time.  Poe’s blush receded to a pink patch on each cheek, and he went on eating as if nothing had happened.  Ben glowered down at his untouched plate, then snatched up his wine glass and drained it.

_Why did they make me so angry?_ Ben wondered, but then he knew: _Because I love him, and **I** want to be his first lover.  He thinks I’m still a child, but I’d know what to do.  Those books I read—I’d do all those things to him, I’d take his virginity, and he’d take mine, and he wouldn’t ever want anyone else!_   He lifted his eyes to Poe’s face, saw the squire laughing and talking and oblivious to Ben’s suffering.  The knot in Ben’s stomach felt as if it turned to lead.

_I don’t love him,_ Ben swore to himself, _I hate him—I **hate** him!_   As often happened, Ben was unwilling, or perhaps even unable, to contain his rage. . . and as often happened, he released that rage by throwing something.  The nearest object to hand happened to be his dinner plate, and the only thing on it not mushy or covered in sauce was a bread roll, long since grown cold and hard.  Ben’s hand closed over the roll, and after a quick glance at his mother to be sure she was looking the other way, he drew back his arm and pitched the unassuming baked good at Poe Dameron’s perfect face.

Two things happened.  First, Queen Organa turned her head just as Ben launched the roll.  He heard her draw in her breath with an affronted gasp, but his attention was focused on his target.  The second thing that happened was that the roll hit said target smack in the eye.

“ _Ow!_ ” yelped Poe.  The roll sort of bounced off his face and landed on his emptied plate, and Poe brought a hand up to his eye to rub at it.  He must have gotten a crumb in it or something, Ben realized, because when Poe dropped his hand, his eye was red and watering.  He blinked it, then held it shut as he stared at Ben with his other eye.

“. . . Did you just throw _bread_ at me?” Poe demanded.  Ben felt simultaneously vindicated and embarrassed, but embarrassment won out when the queen erupted—not with a yell but with the most deadly tone of voice Ben had ever heard from her.

“Get _out. **Now.**_ ”  She shifted her furious eyes from Ben just long enough to glance at the retainer as she snapped, “Threepio, take him to his room and make sure he _stays_ there for the rest of the evening.”  Then she resumed glaring at Ben so strongly, even he couldn’t continue to meet her gaze.  Instead, he looked down as he shoved his chair back from the table and stood.

“I didn’t want to be here anyway!” Ben snarled, not caring now who heard him: every head at the table had already turned to stare at him.  As he stalked to the door and out of the banquet hall, a bemused Threepio trailing after him, Ben told himself it didn’t matter what any of them thought of him.  All that mattered was that he had scored a victory against Poe.  A petty, yeasty victory, but a victory nonetheless.

Once shuttered in his chambers, with the retainer standing miserable guard in the tower outside, Ben undressed, threw his clothes on the floor, and threw himself into bed.

“Damn him,” the prince growled, his deep voice sounding unnervingly loud in the quiet room.  “Damn him to _hell_.  Him and whatever stupid girl he goes and fucks.”  Ben regretted saying it, because once he thought of the anonymous woman who would that night make Poe a man, he couldn’t _stop_ thinking about her or what she would do to the squire.  As the minutes ticked by, enough minutes so that Ben was sure the banquet had ended, he began to wonder where Poe was, and what he was doing.

_Did he go to a tavern, or does he know some girl in town already?  Or is it even someone here in the castle?_   Some of the servant girls were pretty, he supposed, and the royal physician had only recently taken in two lovely twins, to train them as assistants.  Maybe Poe would choose one of them.  _Or both,_ Ben thought, taking a grim pride in even coming up with that idea.  _He may think I’m still a boy, but I know plenty about the things men do!_

That proved to be a curse, though, when Ben started wondering not whom Poe would choose, but what he would do with her.  He thought of all the things he’d read about and stewed as he imagined Poe doing them with anyone else.

_Is she on top of him, or is he on top of her?  Did he take all his clothes off, or just enough to do it?  Where are they—a back room at a tavern, a room at the inn, her room, his room?_

“Nngh!” Ben growled in frustration as he turned over on his stomach and laid his cheek against his pillow.  He knew how _he_ would do it, with Poe on his back so Ben could see his eyes, lids half-closed with pleasure.  _I’d make him feel so good, he’d never want anyone else!_ Ben swore. _I’d do to him what a woman can’t, and he would love it.  And then he’d take me too—hard, he’d do it hard, and when he came in me, he’d say he loves me. . . and I’d—I’d laugh at him, I’d tell him that I’d never love him, that he was just a way for me to pleasure myself.  I’d hurt him, I’d make him **cry** because he couldn’t have me, the way I can’t have him. . . ._

The prince groaned into his pillow, and tears pricked the backs of his closed eyelids.

_No, I wouldn’t.  If Poe said he loves me, I’d tell him everything.  How beautiful he is, his eyes and skin and mouth, his face and the curls in his hair.  I’d tell him how he haunts my dreams, how he breaks my heart just because he’s so kind and good.  I’d tell him how much I love him, and beg him to stay with me, because I don’t think I’ll ever be happy without him._

The tears seeped through Ben’s lashes and soaked into the pillow case as he whispered aloud, wanting to say the words just once, “I love you, Poe.  I love you.”

\--

Ben fell into a doze, and when he awoke, it was long after midnight.  The prince sat up, rubbed at his eyes, and fumbled to light a candle at his bedside.

_Surely Threepio’s gone by now,_ Ben thought. _I could still go leave Poe’s gift in his room, as long as I’m quiet and don’t wake him.  If he’s even there—he might not be back if he went out for. . . for **that**._

He got out of bed and pawed through the pile of clothing on his floor until he found his pants.  Ben was about to pull them on when he thought of something else.

_But what if he’s there. . . with **her**?  What if I see her sleeping beside him when I open the door?  Or what if they’re not asleep, what if I get to his door and hear—_

Ben cut his thoughts off there, shaking his head so hard, the tie holding his hair back came loose, and the prince’s hair spread over his shoulders.

_No.  I couldn’t stand it.  And I can’t give him this._   He fumbled in the pocket of his pants and fished out the satin bag from the jeweler’s.  Ben pulled the ribbon off and tipped the contents of the bag into his palm.  The silver necklace spilled into his hand, shining in the candlelight. 

_If I had given it to him, he would have wondered whom it was from.  Maybe he would have worn it every day,_ Ben mused, _trying to draw me out and learn my identity.  There would have been something between us then, something linking us together even if he never knew it came from me._

The prince sighed and fumbled to undo the clasp of the necklace; then he looped the chain around his own neck and fastened it.

_He’ll never wear it, but I can,_ Ben thought, brushing his fingertips over the chain where it rested on his collarbones.  _I’ll wear it every day under my shirt, and think of him, and love him.  I’ll love him forever._

\--

Poe sent a silent prayer of thanks to the heavens when the banquet in his honor was over.  It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the honor, and the food had certainly been delicious.  It had just been one of the strangest, and most embarrassing, meals he’d ever attended.

After Queen Organa departed, wishing him a happy birthday, the knights renewed their teasing about Poe heading off to “become a man.”  Poe admired the older men, all of them, and he would be honored when he could join their ranks three years later.  Therefore, he tolerated their japes and pretended that he really might go off to a tavern in search of a girl to bed; he didn’t want either to offend them or to let on that bedding girls didn’t interest him at all.  When Poe was able to make his escape, he left the dining hall to the sound of cheers and whooping.  As soon as he was unobserved, Poe ducked into a side corridor and slipped through the castle, straight back to his room.

“Finally,” Poe muttered.  He bolted his door from the inside and started to undress.  It was early for him to be going to bed, but at least he was going to bed alone.  He rubbed at his eye and winced.

_As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, Ben had to go and throw a piece of bread at me.  What the hell’s wrong with him anyway?_ Poe wondered.  His eye began to water again from the rubbing, and he groaned as he climbed into his small, lumpy bed.

Poe was used to Ben throwing things, certainly, but not food, and not _at_ somebody. _Something really made him angry,_ Poe realized.  _Angry at **me**.  I guess I shouldn’t have teased him about being younger than I am, but he’s just so. . . so. . . unapproachable.  If he’s mad at me, at least it means he noticed I exist. . . ._

Ben had always been like that: aloof, unreachable.  Not snobbish, exactly, even though he was the prince—Poe had the feeling Ben would behave exactly the same if he were a peasant.  Everything the prince did seemed staged, theatrical and rehearsed.  His hair for instance.  Why was he wearing his hair pulled back so severely?  It was an unflattering style for the prince, whose glossy, raven hair was one of his best features.  Poe was sure there was a reason for it, because Ben had a reason for everything he did.  Even for throwing rolls, although Poe might never fathom what Ben hoped to accomplish with that action.

_The only time he acted like a normal human being was that time he got lost in the forest,_ Poe remembered, _on his birthday.  I found him, and we scared that wolf away, together. . . ._   Something about that memory felt strange to Poe, like maybe things hadn’t happened quite that way.  In fact, he couldn’t remember the wolf at all, only telling Queen Organa _about_ the wolf, afterwards.  But he never would have lied to the queen, and he _did_ remember what happened once the wolf had run, while he and Poe were still in the forest.

_I yelled at him,_ Poe remembered, _for scaring me.  I told him how worried I’d been, and I hugged him.  And Ben. . . he hugged me back._   Poe closed his eyes and thought of how it had felt, the prince’s long arms wrapped around him and Ben’s larger body sheltering Poe, even though Ben was the one who’d been lost and Poe the one who’d come to his rescue.  He remembered the sound of Ben’s voice whispering, _I promise, Poe.  I won’t run away anymore._   He remembered the way Ben had said his name.

And then they’d gone home, and Ben was the same as he’d always been—no, Ben was _worse_ , so cold that Poe would have thought he’d just imagined the whole thing if he didn’t have such vivid memories of being in Ben’s arms.

He hadn’t thought about that day in a while, but Ben’s bizarre behavior at the banquet rekindled the memory.  What _was_ wrong with Ben, anyway?  Why was he so angry, angry enough that he refused to eat and then threw the uneaten food at Poe?  And why had he looked, just for a moment, like he was about to weep?  Something clenched in Poe’s chest when he remembered that look and the pain in Ben’s dark brown eyes, and in spite of everything, Poe longed to comfort him.

_If I could just hold him again,_ Poe thought, _and make him feel better.  If he’d only let me.  Why does he hate me so much?  I don’t want anything but the best for him.  I just want him to be happy. . . ._

Poe sighed and curled up in bed, turning on his side with his arms wrapped around a thick fold of his bedding.  _But he’ll never know that, because he won’t give me a chance to tell him.  He’ll never let me hold him again. . . ._   Once again, Poe replayed their embrace in his mind, and he felt something warm in his chest, then in his groin as, for no reason at all, he thought of how the knights had teased him: _So you’re a man now. . . but are you **really**?_

_What if I didn’t lose my virginity to a girl?_ Poe wondered.  _What if I lay with another man instead?  Would it count?  Would it count if I lay with Ben?_

As soon as the thought crossed Poe’s mind, he banished it.  Ben was only sixteen, and he was. . . well, he was _Ben_.  He would never so much as speak a kind word to Poe.  Poe clutched his blanket closer to his chest and willed away the desire threatening to rise in him.  Soon he fell asleep, and by the time he awoke the next day, Poe had forgotten that he’d ever thought of sleeping with the prince, just as he’d forgotten that, three years before, Ben had cast a magic spell that sent a wolf flying through the air and saved Poe’s life.

In the latter case, Poe’s amnesia was precipitated by a certain spell Ben had learned from his uncle, King Luke Skywalker.  However, magic had nothing to do with why Poe forgot his forbidden desire for the prince.

Poe was just good at running away too.

\--

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the "official" ending, but the following chapter has an alternate happy ending for this story.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is an alternate ending to this story, where “Downfall” doesn’t happen—or at least, it happens very differently. This chapter picks up where Ben wakes up in the middle of the night in the previous chapter.

Be my Heaven, and I’ll be your danger.  
-“Never Seen Runaway,” Jay Kill & the Hustle Standard

\--

Ben fell into a doze, and when he awoke, it was long after midnight.  The prince sat up, rubbed at his eyes, and fumbled to light a candle at his bedside.

 _Surely Threepio’s gone by now,_ Ben thought. _I could still go leave Poe’s gift in his room, as long as I’m quiet and don’t wake him.  If he’s even there—he might not be back yet if he went out for. . . for **that**._

He got out of bed and pawed through the pile of clothing on his floor until he found his pants.  Ben pulled them on, double-checked the pocket to ensure both the skeleton key and the little satin bag were still there, then tugged his tunic over his head.  Not bothering with shoes—he was too impatient, and anyway, he could move more quietly barefoot—Ben took up his candle and was out of his chambers and halfway down the stairs when he remembered that his hair tie had fallen out.

 _Never mind,_ he told himself as he padded down the rest of the stairs and into the main wing of the castle.  _No one’s going to see me anyway._

Something else occurred to him when he was almost to Poe’s door, halfway down the narrow corridor that led to the small room allotted to the squire when he became Queen Organa’s ward:  _What if he’s there, and he has a girl there with him?_   The thought made Ben nauseous, and he almost turned back.  Then he narrowed his eyes, steeled himself, and went on, thinking, _So what if he does?  I can’t spend the rest of my life running away._

Still, Ben paused outside Poe’s room and listened, fearing he would hear. . . well, _something_ , some sound to indicate that Poe was there and occupied with someone.  But there was nothing, and finally Ben took out his key and eased the pin and bit of the key into the lock.  He felt, rather than heard, the tumblers inside falling into place around the key; then the prince turned the key and slowly, slowly pushed the door open.

The room was dark and quiet, and Ben thought Poe wasn’t there.  But then he lifted the candle he carried, and its dim, yellow flicker illuminated someone on the bed.  Ben gritted his teeth, slid into the room between the door and the jamb, and shut the door behind him.

Only when Ben edged closer with his light could he see for certain that it was Poe in the bed—and that he was alone.  Ben’s arms went nearly limp with relief, and he almost dropped both his key and the candle.  _Dammit,_ he swore in his head, _I’ve got to be careful._   He tucked the key back into his pocket and pulled out Poe’s gift instead.  A rough-hewn trunk, probably meant to hold Poe’s few belongings, sat beside the bed, and Ben laid the satin bag on it next to a partially-burnt candle.

 _There’s no way he can miss it there,_ Ben decided.  _Now to get out of here._

But, of course, it wasn’t that simple: he couldn’t leave so soon and give up what might be his only chance to be that close to Poe.  Ben told himself he was only going to ascertain that Poe was still sleeping, and the prince inched a bit closer to the squire’s bedside, holding out the candle so he could see.

Poe was as gorgeous sleeping as he was awake, if not more so.  The thin sheet covering him did little to hide the shape of his perfect body, and Ben could see his chest rise and fall with every breath.  Poe had his arms wrapped around a big bundle of the sheet, hugging it to him like the lover Ben had feared to find there, and it was pulled up so far, Poe’s slim ankles and small feet were exposed near the end of the bed.  Even his feet were beautiful, Ben observed miserably.

Nothing could compare to the beauty of Poe’s face, though.  Ben moved closer, until the edge of the mattress bumped his calves, and held the candle lower.  He thought all kinds of poetic things about the light kissing Poe’s skin and the shadows dancing over it, but none of the words could really capture what the sight made him feel as he looked at Poe’s dark lashes, his lips, his messy hair, his nose—well, all right, his nose _was_ a little large, but Ben thought that one flaw made Poe even more desirable.  (And anyway, the prince lamented, he had no right to critique the size of _anyone’s_ nose.)

Ben’s gaze returned to Poe’s lips, and he thought about kissing them.  The idea sent a little thrill through him, but he knew better than to try it.  With his luck, Poe would wake right up if Ben kissed him, just like. . . _Like Eros,_ Ben remembered from the mythology lessons he’d studied as a child.  _Psyche was in love with Eros, but he wouldn’t let her see his face.  So she snuck in one night with a candle to look at him while he was sleeping, and when she bent down and kissed him, he woke up and was so mad, he ran away from her forever._  Or something like that.

Ben sighed—carefully, so as to be silent—and just looked at Poe for another moment; then he turned to go.  He forgot about the trunk, and, in turning, smashed his bare toes on it.

 _Mother **fucker** ,_ Ben thought as tears of pain started in his eyes and he literally bit his tongue to stop himself from crying out.  Biting his tongue couldn’t help him keep his balance though, and he stumbled, waving his arms frantically to avoid falling right on top of Poe.  The prince managed to regain his balance, but as he righted himself, he remembered how the myth actually went.

Psyche didn’t wake Eros up by kissing him.  She woke him up by spilling lamp oil on him.

One second later, Poe yelped, “ _Shit!_ ” and sat bolt upright in bed, scrabbling at his face with his left hand.  “Ow, ow, what the _hell_ ,” he grumbled as Ben could think of nothing to do but blow out the candle and pray that he could escape before Poe figured out who had just dripped candle wax on his face.  Ben started backing toward the door in the complete darkness.

“Wh-who’s there?” Poe stammered a second later.  Ben froze and said nothing.  He heard the bed rustling as Poe shifted on it, and Ben began to move again.  He wasn’t certain how he could get out the door and away without Poe seeing him, but he would figure that out when he got there.

“I know you’re there!”  Poe was nearly shouting now, and Ben shuffled backwards as fast as he could, until his heel caught on an uneven stone and sent him careening backwards into the door.  The back of his head cracked against the hard wood, and Ben groaned before he could stop himself.  He also dropped the candle, and the holder clattered to the floor with a horrendous crash.

“Damn it all to _hell_ ,” Ben growled.

“. . . Ben?  I mean, Prince Solo?”  Poe sounded justifiably stunned.  Ben closed his eyes, shook his head a little to try to clear it of the ache he’d given himself, then fumbled for the latch on Poe’s door.

“Prince Solo!”  Ben heard Poe fumbling for something too.  “Look, I know it’s you, your voice—no one else has a voice like that!  If you’re trying to kill me—”  There was a scraping sound, followed by a spark that strengthened into a glow as Poe struck a flint to light the candle sitting on his trunk.  “—whatever you just did hurt worse than the bread, but it wasn’t. . . .”  He looked up at Ben, who was standing at the door in defeat.  “. . . wasn’t all that effective,” Poe finished in a softer voice.

“I’m not trying to kill you, you idiot,” Ben grumbled.  He bent down to pick up his candle and its holder.  When he straightened up again, Poe was still watching him.

“Then why did you sneak into my room in the middle of the night?”  Poe sat on the edge of the bed, legs dangling off the side.  He was wearing a long tunic that reached his knees, but Ben’s eyes kept drifting to Poe’s firm calves below the tunic’s hem.

“I. . . .”  Ben hauled his eyes back up to Poe’s face and sighed.  “I wanted to give you a birthday present, all right?”

“A birthday present?  You. . . you got me a present?”  Poe’s lips twitched in an involuntary smile.  Ben nodded and pointed at the bag on top of the squire’s trunk.  Poe breathed, “Oh,” and leaned over to pick the bag up.  He looked down at it in his hand, then back up at Ben.  “But. . . but why?  You hate me.”

Even though Ben had thought that very thing just a few hours before, he blurted out, “For Christ’s sake, Poe, I don’t _hate_ you.  I. . . I just. . . .”  He broke off, folded his arms, and leaned back against the door before he tried again.  “I just thought you should have a present on your eighteenth birthday.  That’s _all_.”

“Then why didn’t you just give it to me?” Poe persisted.  “Why sneak into my room?”

Ben groaned, “Because you weren’t supposed to know it was from me!  I was going to leave it in here earlier, but Mother sent me to my room, and— _no_ , don’t open it!”  Poe had started picking at the ribbon tying the bag shut, and he gave Ben an annoyed look when the prince snapped at him.

“Why not?  What am I supposed to do with a gift if I can’t open it?”

“Just. . . just wait until I’m gone, all right?  Look, I’ll go now, I’m leaving.”  Ben turned and jerked open the latch on Poe’s door.

“Ben, wait!”  Ben ignored Poe’s injunction, until the squire clambered out of bed, leaving his gift there on the sheet, and darted over to shove the latch closed again and stand in front of it so Ben couldn’t get at it.  Ben drew back from him, almost dropping his candle a second time.

“You are so _strange,_ ” Poe murmured with a look both puzzled and amused.  “Ben—I mean, Prince Solo, why don’t you want me to open it with you here?  Is it going to hurt me?”

“ _No_ , it’s not going to hurt you,” Ben muttered.  “I wouldn’t—well, I wouldn’t hurt you on _purpose_.”  Poe raised his eyebrows and lifted his hand to rub the slightly reddened spot on his cheek where the candle wax had spilled.  Ben glared and protested, “I didn’t mean to drip wax on you!  And your eye—you weren’t supposed to get bread _in_ your eye.  I was aiming for your forehead.”  He paused, trying to tell in the candlelight if Poe’s eye was still red too.  “Is—is your eye all right now?”

“It’s still kind of scratchy.”  Poe swiped at it with the back of hand, until Ben reached out and grabbed his wrist to snatch his hand away.

“You imbecile, that’ll make it _worse_ ,” the prince grumbled.  “Here, let me see.”  He tugged Poe over to the lit candle, set his own candle down beside it, and took Poe’s head in his now-trembling hands.  He hadn’t touched the squire in the three years since they embraced, and he marveled at how soft and warm Poe’s skin felt.  Ben put one thumb on his eyebrow and the other on his cheek, then gently pulled them apart to hold Poe’s eyelids open.  Poe’s sclera did still look a little red, and his eye watered a bit as he looked up at the prince, but Ben didn’t see any real damage.

“Just quit rubbing it, and it’ll be fine,” Ben told him.  He let go and tried to move back to the door, but Poe clasped his forearms and held him there.

“I don’t understand you,” Poe said in little more than a whisper, “not at all.  You say you wouldn’t hurt me on purpose, but. . . you’re so cruel to me.  You hurt me all the time, and I’ve never done _anything_ to you!”

Ben looked down at Poe and gave a helpless little shrug.  “I. . . I’m sorry, Poe, all right?  I’m _sorry_.”  He floundered for an excuse then muttered, “You were right, I’m jealous.  I’ve always been jealous of you.  Is that what you wanted, to make me admit it?”

“Jealous of me?” Poe repeated.  “But why?  You’re—you’re the _prince_.  I’m. . . nobody.”

“Hmph,” Ben snorted, “right, you’re nobody.  Except everyone adores you, and you’re kind, and brave, and handsome, _and_ you’re older than me.  Everyone thinks _I’m_ still a child, just like you said.”

Poe sighed, “I’m sorry I said that, Be—your highness.  I. . . well, I was trying to make you mad.  Pretty childish of _me_ , actually.  But I didn’t mean it, I don’t. . . .”  Poe’s eyes drifted down Ben’s torso, to where he still grasped the prince’s arms.  Poe let them go then mumbled, “I don’t think of you that way at all.  But you shouldn’t be jealous of me.  I _did_ mean it when I said you’ll be eighteen before you know it—it’s only two years.  You were away that long training with King Skywalker, and that went by quickly, didn’t it?”

“Those two years,” Ben declared, “felt like ages.  I thought I’d never get to come home, I was so—”  He stopped himself, but Poe raised those dark brows again.

“You were so what?  Homesick?”

“Lonely,” Ben admitted.  _I shouldn’t be talking to him like this,_ the prince thought, _making myself this vulnerable.  Any minute now, he’s going to start laughing at me.  But. . . talking to him is so nice.  He’s actually listening to me, and no one else ever does. . . ._

“You were _lonely_?  You?”  Poe gave him an incredulous look.  “But you’re always alone here, too.”

“That’s. . . that’s different.  You wouldn’t understand.”  Ben turned his head away and muttered, “You wouldn’t know what being lonely is like at all.  You have lots of friends.”

“You really _are_ jealous of me, aren’t you?” Poe marveled.  “Just because I have friends, doesn’t mean I’m never lonely.  And you—you could have friends if you wanted to.”  He paused, then when Ben still wouldn’t look at him, Poe frowned and actually moved into the prince’s line of sight before he continued.  “I would have been your friend all along.  I _tried_ to be.”

“We can’t be friends, Poe,” Ben muttered.

“Why not?” the squire protested.  “It’s not that difficult—I mean, you already got me a present, so you _do_ know how to act like a friend.  Just start. . . I don’t know, saying hello when you see me, and smile at me instead of glaring, and for God’s sake, don’t throw things at me anymore!  That’s really all it takes.”

Ben tried his hardest not to smile, but it was irrepressible.  Poe’s definition of friendship—say hello and don’t throw rolls around—was so innocent and sweet, Ben couldn’t _help_ but smile.  When Poe saw the prince’s mouth curve upward, he out and out grinned.

“So now that we’re friends,” the squire went on, as if everything were settled, “can I open my present?  _Before_ you leave,” he added when Ben opened his mouth.  “I’m not going to open it without you.”

Ben sighed, “Fine.  Go ahead.”  Still, he felt his face flush when Poe scooped up the bag and tugged the silk ribbon off.  The squire held out his hand and tipped the bag upside down, so that its contents fell into his palm.

“It’s. . . .”  Poe trailed off, set the bag aside, then hooked his finger under the chain to lift it up and stare at it.  “This is for me?  It’s beautiful.”

“Yes,” Ben muttered.  “It’s for you.”

Poe murmured, “Your highness—” but Ben cut him off with what was nearly a growl.

“If—if we’re going to be friends, you have to call me by my name.”  Poe grinned a second time.

“Ben,” he said, and the prince’s stomach fluttered to hear the way Poe said it.  “Ben, it’s beautiful, really.  I don’t deserve something this nice.”

“Of course you do,” Ben sighed.  He flinched when Poe suddenly grasped his hand and held it open so he could press the necklace into it.  At first, Ben thought Poe was refusing to accept the gift, but then the squire smiled at him and turned around.

“Will you put it on me?”

Ben fumbled with the catch, feeling like his fingers were about three times too large for the delicate mechanism.  When he finally got it open, he reached around Poe to drape the necklace over his collarbones, then drew his hands to the back of the squire’s neck to fasten the clasp.  Ben’s fingers brushed the nape of Poe’s neck, just below the dark curls of his hair, and Poe shivered.

“Thank you,” he whispered, still facing away from the prince.  “I love it, Ben.  No one has ever given me a gift for my birthday before.”

Ben muttered, “You’re welcome.”  He looked down at Poe’s shoulders; his white tunic was pushed up nearly to his neck on one side but had slipped off the opposite shoulder.  Ben stared, transfixed, at the skin stretched over Poe’s muscle and bone.  Normally light brown, Poe’s skin looked golden in the candlelight, especially in contrast to the silver of the necklace resting a few inches above his shoulder.

Of its own accord, Ben’s hand closed over the smaller boy’s shoulder, and beneath his palm, Poe’s skin felt as warm as it looked.  Poe made a small, soft noise—not quite a gasp and not quite a whimper, but something in between.

“Happy birthday,” said Ben.  It was the stupidest thing he possibly could have said, he felt, but he also felt like he had to say _something_.

“Thank you,” Poe said again.  He turned his head to look at Ben’s hand, and the sight of Poe’s profile and one half-lidded dark eye threatened to drive the prince even further out of his mind with desire. _I’ve got to get out of here,_ he thought, pulling his hand away. _I want him so badly, if I don’t go, I’ll make a fool of myself.  This was a mistake, coming here was all a mistake. . . ._

Poe looked over his shoulder, then turned completely when he saw Ben trying once again to escape.

“Ben, don’t, please,” Poe stammered.  “Please don’t go. . . .”

“Why not?” Ben muttered, hand on the door.  “I’ve given you your present, and it’s late, and—”  He broke off in a gasp when he felt Poe press up against his back, the squire’s arms snaking under his to wrap around his chest.

“You think I don’t know what it’s like to be lonely,” mumbled Poe into Ben’s shirt, with his cheek pressed to the prince’s spine.  “But I _am_ lonely, Ben, you have no idea.  I don’t want you to go and leave me. . . I don’t want to be alone all night!”

For perhaps the first time in his life, Ben had absolutely nothing to say, either aloud or to himself.  As inelegant a word as it was, “flabbergasted” was the only way to describe how he felt.

Finally, he managed to stammer, “But. . . but you—didn’t you. . . .”  He lifted his shaking hand from the door and put it over both of Poe’s, clasped against Ben’s breastbone.  “Didn’t you go to the tavern?  I thought—I thought you’d been with a girl all evening.”

“The tavern?  What girl?”  Ben felt Poe lift his head, although the squire didn’t let go of him.  “What are you talking about?”

Ben finally worked up the nerve to turn around and face Poe, although he hated to pull away from the squire’s embrace.  Poe let his arms drop to his sides and looked up at Ben with a bleak expression, like he thought Ben was about to bolt from the room despite Poe’s efforts.

“The knights said you would go lie with a woman,” Ben said, “and that then you’d be a real man.  Didn’t you do it?”

Poe’s pretty, peach-colored mouth literally fell open, his cheeks flushed, and then, amazingly, he burst into laughter.

“Dear God in Heaven, _no!_ ” he gasped in between laughs.  “As soon as that dreadful banquet was over, I sneaked away and came back here to hide so they wouldn’t tease me anymore!”  This time, Ben was the one to stare.

“You mean you didn’t go fuck somebody?” he blurted out.

“Ben!” Poe exclaimed at the prince’s language.  He had calmed down somewhat, but he was still smiling as he shook his head.  “No, of course not.  I’ll let them believe I did, if it means they’ll quit making fun of me for being a virgin, but I don’t have any desire for women.”  Ben felt his own eyebrows quirk upward; Poe saw, flushed darkly, and mumbled, “To fu—to lie with them, I mean.  Some girls are _pretty_ , I mean, but I don’t. . . I don’t want to—I mean, don’t think about them _that_ way.”  As Poe finally quit stammering, Ben took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 

“Oh,” he said and thought, _I was so angry and upset, thinking of him with someone else, and he was here alone the whole time._

Still looking embarrassed, Poe asked, “Do—do you think less of me because I didn’t do it?”

“No, not at all,” Ben breathed.  He struggled to formulate a response that wouldn’t let on just how relieved he felt.  “I. . . I think _more_ of you because you didn’t go do something you didn’t want to do, just because they said you should.”

“Really?”  Poe smiled again, faint and quick, then ducked his head.  “I’m sorry that I—I touched you.  You can leave if you want to.  I don’t have any right to ask you to stay.”

“Poe. . . .”  Ben felt as if he were being pulled into two different directions at once.  He still wanted to escape, before Poe could have any more influence over his emotions, but at the same time, he wanted to give in to those emotions and stay.  Poe sounded so unhappy and, yes, lonely, that Ben thought he would do almost anything to take the pain away from the older boy’s voice.

“Poe, do you really want me to stay?” the prince finally asked.

Poe lifted his beautiful eyes back to Ben’s face, and he whispered, “Yes, I want you to stay.”  Ben nodded, weakly, and shuffled forward to set his candle back on the trunk.  He looked down at Poe, at his still-exposed shoulder, and longed to touch him.  When his gaze met Poe’s again, the smaller boy’s eyes were half-closed in that way he had, and he looked up at Ben through his lashes.  Ben could feel himself flush again, and the faintest of smiles flickered over Poe’s lips.

 _He knows,_ Ben thought, silently panicking.  _He knows exactly what he’s doing to me—like he’s the mage, not me, and he’s cast a spell over me. . . ._

Poe stepped up to him and put his arms around Ben again, from the front this time.  Poe leaned his head on Ben’s chest and murmured, “Hold me, Ben, please.  I want you to hold me like you did in the forest.”

Ben closed his eyes.  All his defenses were crumbling away. . . and yet Poe was being so kind to him, that Ben found it hard to imagine the squire would do any of the things Ben had worried about: mock him, laugh at him. . . be disgusted by him.  He couldn’t resist wrapping his own arms around Poe’s shoulders and holding the squire against him.

Ben whispered back to Poe, “I didn’t think you remembered that, when we were in the forest.”

“Of course I remember.  It was the only time you let me—let me in.”  Poe tilted his head up, and Ben felt the shorter boy’s breath on his neck.  When Ben shivered, Poe tightened his embrace and shifted to stroke the other side of Ben’s neck with one hand.  The prince groaned before he could stop himself and tilted his head back.

“Ben?”  Poe leaned more heavily against him and petted his neck with his fingertips.  “I told you, I don’t have any desire for women.  Do you?  Or are you like me, do you want. . . do you want other men?”

“I never really thought about it,” Ben muttered.  Poe’s hair was tickling his cheek, and when Ben turned his head slightly towards it, he caught its scent, something both sweet and indefinable.  Poe had gone very still in his arms, and Ben was so afraid the squire was going to pull away from him, that he mumbled, “I’ve—I’ve only thought about _you_.  I only want you.”

“Ben. . . .”  Poe’s fingers curled over the side of his neck; then Poe’s lips were at his throat, whispering words just barely audible.  “I want you too.  You keep pushing me away, but I still want you.”

Despite everything Ben had read, and all his conviction that he’d know exactly how to make love to Poe, the prince felt utterly lost now that Poe was _there_ , in his arms, warm and real and. . . and kissing his neck, with lips surprisingly soft and wet.

“Poe!” Ben gasped.  He clutched Poe against him and pressed his lips into the smaller boy’s hair with a whimper.

“Mmn. . . .”  Poe opened his mouth and scraped his teeth along the tendon in Ben’s neck.  “Do you really want me, Ben?  You’re not just—not just trying to hurt me again, are you?”  He sounded as if the idea hadn’t occurred to him before, and Poe drew back enough to look up into Ben’s eyes, his brow wrinkled with concern.

“No,” Ben hissed, “ _no_.”  Even though he had once imagined exactly that—telling Poe the squire meant nothing to him, making him hurt—the thought of doing so now was unbearable.  He put his hands to the sides of Poe’s head and stroked back the dark waves of hair that fell around his face.  “Poe, I only pushed you away because I was afraid—I _am_ afraid.”

“But what do you have to be afraid of?” Poe asked in a bewildered tone.  “Of. . . of _me?_   Why?”

Ben whispered, “Because you could break my heart.”  Poe stared at him, dark eyes wide; then he shook his head slowly in Ben’s hands.

“Ben. . . I wouldn’t do that.”  Poe leaned forward again and hugged the prince tightly with his chin up on Ben’s shoulder.  “I promise, I won’t—if you promise me, promise me _again_ , that you won’t run away!”

“I won’t,” Ben swore.  It would be hard, he knew, to keep that promise.  His instinct for self-preservation was telling him not to trust Poe, not to make himself vulnerable. _But it’s too late now anyway,_ the prince decided as he felt Poe press even closer against him, _it was too late the moment he touched me.  Even if I left right now, I couldn’t pretend anymore that I don’t love him._

“Poe,” he whispered, “can I. . . would you let me kiss you?”  He felt Poe shake with a soft laugh, and the squire lifted his head to look up at him.

“Yes, please.  I’ve wanted you to kiss me for a long time.”  Poe leaned up on his toes, cupped a hand under Ben’s jaw, and put his lips so close to Ben’s, they brushed when he spoke again.  “When you came back from your training, last year. . . you had changed so much.  You’d grown up, and I wanted you.  But you treated me just like you always did, so I tried—I tried so _hard_ not to care for you.”

The touch of Poe’s lips was far too much temptation for Ben to stand, and he held Poe’s head as he kissed the squire for the first time.  The prince had never kissed anyone before, and despite knowing intellectually how it worked, he really had no idea of how to do it.  At first, he just kissed Poe’s lips, softly, the way he’d kissed his mother’s cheek as a child.  Ben drew back slightly, and Poe actually leaned his head forward, trying to follow the prince’s mouth.

Ben’s heart beat faster, and he put his mouth on Poe’s again.  Poe tightened his hold on Ben’s jaw and clung to him with his other arm as he parted his lips.  Ben drew in a shaky breath through his nose, then gently thrust his tongue into Poe’s mouth.  He heard the same soft sound Poe had made when Ben first touched him, then Poe’s tongue was in his mouth too, and they were kissing: first with some awkward fumbling but then faster and harder as they got used to it.  Poe’s hand drifted up to clench in Ben’s hair, and Ben’s dropped to Poe’s hips, drawing Poe up against him.  The prince leaned against the wall as Poe pressed his smaller body to Ben’s.  Even through their clothing, Ben could feel the heat of Poe’s skin, and he spread his hands over the squire’s hips, trying to touch more of him.

“Ben,” Poe breathed into his mouth.  He dropped down on his heels, panting, and turned his head to wipe his mouth on the shoulder of his tunic.  Then he pulled out of Ben’s hold and grasped both of the prince’s hands in his to tug him toward the bed.

“Come lie down with me,” he whispered when Ben hesitated.  Ben came after him, but Poe stopped him at the edge of the bed.  When Poe let go of his hands and reached for the waist of his pants, Ben nearly choked.

“Poe. . . you—you really want to. . . .”  He trailed off, telling himself, _I swore I’d know how to please him.  I wanted my chance, and this is it. . . ._

“Yes.”  Poe paused the motion of his hands and looked up at Ben, biting his lower lip.  “We don’t have to. . . um, have intercourse.  I don’t know if I’m ready for that, no matter what anyone says about my age.  But Ben. . . I want to be with you.  I want you to be the first one to touch me like—like a lover.”  He dropped his eyes to Ben’s waist and began untying the laces of the prince’s pants as he whispered, as if to himself, “And I can pretend that you’re mine, that it won’t ever end. . . .”

Ben grappled for a response when Poe fell silent.  The squire finished undoing his pants and began to work them down past Ben’s hipbones.  Although Ben’s long shirt still covered him, he blushed when Poe let his pants fall to the ground.  When Poe cast a quick, nervous glance up at him then took his hand again, Ben stepped out of the pants and followed the squire to his bed.

The bed creaked horribly under their weight when they both sat down, facing one another, and the straw in the mattress poked Ben’s bare thighs.  He managed to hold back a wince but wondered if he could somehow get Poe up to his room next time.  _Next time,_ Ben marveled at his own optimism.  _I’m pretending it won’t ever end. . . like he said. . . ._

He asked, hoarsely, “Poe, you said you tried not to care about me.  Does that mean—does it mean you _do_?”

Poe nodded solemnly.  “I wouldn’t even have kissed you if I didn’t.  Do you. . . do you care for me, Ben?”  The look in his eyes was so plaintive, Ben said what he had murmured to himself in the dark just hours before, what he thought he’d never say again.

“Poe, I _love_ you.”  When Poe just stared at him, Ben’s heart sank—it felt as if it did so _literally_ , like a rock in his chest—but he realized he wouldn’t take the words back if he could.  Not having to carry the burden of his secret any longer. . . that made it all worthwhile, even if Poe never loved him the same way.  The catharsis of confession led him to go on, “You don’t have to pretend that I’m yours—I _am_ , I’ll be yours for as long as you want me.  Even when I turn eighteen too, I won’t want anyone else.  It won’t end until. . . until you say so.”

“But. . . .”  Poe looked down and swallowed audibly.  “But you’re a prince.  Someday, you’ll be the king.  You’re expected to—to marry and have children.”

“I won’t do it,” Ben grumbled.  “They can’t make me!  And—and even if you don’t want me anymore by then, I _still_ won’t do it!  If I can’t marry you, I won’t marry _anybody_ , because I’m going to love you forever.”

Poe had begun shaking his head halfway through, and as soon as Ben stopped talking, he protested, “You can’t say something like that, just because of me.  I can’t let you!”

Ben shot back, “You’re not _letting_ me do anything!  Haven’t I always done what I wanted whether you liked it or not?”

“Well _yes_ , but—”

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me!” the prince insisted.  “And it doesn’t matter if you don’t love me, I’m still going to love _you_.”

“Ben. . . .”  Poe blinked hard then wrapped his arms around Ben’s shoulders.  “Ben, I do love you, of course I do.  I shouldn’t, I don’t have the right to love a prince. . . and I shouldn’t tell you, but I can’t—can’t let you think that I don’t!”  Ben exhaled in a shaky sigh of relief and bliss, and he held Poe close to him.  Again he was struck by the warmth of the squire’s small body, and by Poe’s scent.  Ben buried his face in the crook of Poe’s neck to savor both, then found himself caressing the smooth skin there.

“Mmn, Ben,” Poe whimpered.  He shifted his shoulder until his tunic slipped off of it once more, and Ben kissed his way along the smaller boy’s clavicle to reach it.  He sucked on Poe’s tan skin until it was flushed with the blood he drew to the surface.  Poe groaned and tugged on Ben, coaxing him to lie down; then Poe crawled on top of the prince and began to kiss him again, hard and deep.

Ben reached up to grab Poe’s hips through his tunic so he could hold the squire against him.  After making a couple experimental thrusts upward with his own hips, Ben found that he couldn’t _stop_ thrusting against the smaller body on top of his.  He moaned into Poe’s mouth as Poe drew his legs up to straddle the prince’s hips and started grinding back against him.

“Nngh, Ben, you feel so good,” Poe hissed after he broke the kiss to catch his breath.  His eyes fluttered closed, and his lips parted in bliss as he rubbed himself against Ben.  The prince gazed up at Poe’s face to see the exact expression he had imagined so many times before.

Ben slid his hands up to Poe’s backside and gripped it to draw Poe down harder, but the feeling of the squire’s tensed muscles under his hands was hampered by Poe’s tunic.  Unsure of himself, Ben hesitated for a moment, but then he decided it was time to prove to both himself and Poe that he really did know what he was doing.  He dropped his hands to grasp the bare backs of Poe’s knees, then slid them up his thighs, under the tunic.  When Ben’s long fingers closed over his ass, Poe gasped, but the gasp melted into another whimper of pleasure when the prince squeezed and groped him.

“Yes, touch me,” Poe urged Ben, pressing back into his hands.  “No one’s ever touched me like that before. . . .”  Poe pushed himself up on one hand and fumbled with the other to grab the hem of Ben’s shirt and pull it up to his chest in one swift movement, before Ben could protest.  The prince’s face prickled with a mixture of embarrassment and nervousness as Poe looked down at him, but the squire seemed satisfied enough with what he saw.  He yanked his own tunic up, giving Ben an all-too-brief glimpse of his slim, tan body and flushed erection before Poe dropped down onto Ben again and resumed thrusting against him.

Ben’s fantasies of long, protracted love-making were shattered: between the heat of Poe’s body and the friction of their erections rubbing together, Ben lasted about a minute.  What’s more, he instead of Poe was the one to groan a declaration of love as he came, holding Poe to him as Ben shot between their bodies.

“Shit,” he sighed as he collapsed on his back once the euphoria of his orgasm faded.  Poe, who hadn’t come yet, kept rubbing against him and laughed.  Ben remembered the vengeance he had originally planned on the squire: _he’d say he loves me, and I’d laugh at him._   For a second, the corners of Ben’s closed eyes ached with abrupt tears, and he wondered if fate were about to remunerate him for the years of cruelty he’d inflicted on Poe.

But then Poe’s warm mouth was on his face, and the squire was whispering, “Don’t tell me it wasn’t good, darling—you shook so hard, you nearly threw me off!”  Ben opened his eyes to look up into Poe’s with both hope and suspicion, and one tear slid out over his temple and down into his hair.  Immediately, Poe’s brows knitted in concern; he quit his needy squirming against Ben and bent his head to kiss the tear-track away.

“Ben?  Are you all right?” he whispered.

“Y-yes, I—ugh, I just didn’t want to come so soon,” Ben mumbled.  His real concern seemed too silly to voice aloud, and he felt guilty for ever thinking Poe might be as cruel to him as Ben had imagined being to the squire.

“But it was good?” Poe persisted.  His lips were brushing caresses all over Ben’s face: his forehead, his chin, the end of his nose.  Poe didn’t seem to think his nose was too big at all.

“God, yes.”

“Bet I can give you another one.”  Poe lifted his head to grin down at the prince.

“You’re so arrogant,” Ben marveled, “and to think you act so humble around everyone else.”  He released his grip on Poe’s ass to flex his fingers before grasping him again and coaxing Poe to resume his thrusting, hissing, “You first.”

When Poe finally came, he didn’t do so while proclaiming his love for his prince—but a moment later, he pressed his lips to Ben’s ear and whispered, “For so long, I’ve wanted this to happen with you, Ben.  I love you—I think I’ve _always_ loved you.”

Poe didn’t become a man that night, per the older knights’ definition, and neither did Ben.  However, they both came again within another hour of exploring each other’s bodies with their hands and mouths; and when they finally slept, they did so out of sheer exhaustion, naked in each other’s arms with their shirts long since stripped off and tossed aside.  When Ben awoke the next morning, it was to the sound of someone beating on Poe’s door and yelling.

“ _Dameron!_   Get the hell up!  Just because you had a birthday yesterday doesn’t mean you get today off too!” bellowed one of the knights in charge of the squire’s training.

“Ugh,” Poe groaned softly.  He was curled up against Ben’s chest, the prince’s longer arms and legs wrapped around him, and he unfurled himself with a sigh.

“I’m coming!” he shouted back; Ben winced and lifted a shoulder in an attempt to cover his ear.  “I need to wash up, then I’ll be outside!”

“Wash fast,” the knight ordered.  “You’re already late.”

“I’m sorry,” Poe mumbled to Ben when all was finally silent beyond his door.  The squire sat up and rubbed his eyes—and the dark circles under them—with the back of his wrist.

“No, I should apologize.  I’ve made you late.”  Ben sat up too and cast an apprehensive look at the smaller boy beside him.  With a few hours of sleep to provide some distance from what they’d done in the night, doubt had filtered into Ben’s mind once more.  It all seemed like a bizarre dream, too strange to be real.  Poe couldn’t really care for him—the idea was incomprehensible.

And sure enough, Poe went on, “Um, Ben?  Last night, I. . . I had no intention of ever—ever saying what I said to you, or doing what we did.”

“Neither did I,” Ben muttered bleakly.  Poe turned his head to look up at the prince, with his lower lip trapped between his teeth.

Poe released it and whispered, “But do you love me?  Truly?”

“Yes,” said Ben, and Poe smiled.

“Then I’ll say and do those things over and over, for as long as you want me,” the squire swore.  He embraced Ben and pressed his lips to the larger boy’s hair.  “I love you, Ben. . . my prince.”

Poe dressed hurriedly, still wearing the silver necklace beneath his clothing, and left his room to go wash up and report for his training.  He bid goodbye to Ben with a lingering kiss and a promise to sneak away to the prince’s chambers after dinner that evening.  Ben waited in the bed, silently cursing the piece of straw that insisted on poking into his thigh no matter how he sat, until Poe was gone so he’d be out of the squire’s way.  Then Ben finally slipped out and back to his own room, once he was certain no one was around to catch him.  As he locked Poe’s door with the skeleton key, he decided to give the key to Poe that night.  _That way, he can come to my room whenever he wants,_ Ben decided.  _And we won’t have to make love on that awful mattress of his again!_

Poe did come to him that evening, and almost every evening after that.  By Ben’s seventeenth birthday, they’d lost their virginity to one another, and on his eighteenth, they were married.  Queen Organa had pretended to be surprised when Poe asked her permission to marry the prince some months beforehand, but by then the entire court knew that Squire Dameron was never in his room at night, and that Prince Solo was considerably less surly than he used to be.  Eventually, someone realized the correlation between these two phenomena, but after the initial shock wore off, nobody minded.  In fact, some said, the unprecedented situation was a blessing in disguise because it so improved the prince’s temper.

In any event, the queen granted her permission, and Ben and Poe were married.  They still fought sometimes, but no more rolls were thrown, and if Ben did persist in spilling hot wax on Poe from time to time, it was done intentionally, at Poe’s request, and on parts of his body other than his face.  When Ben eventually became king, he was generally a good one who relied on his consort’s advice and somewhat leveler head when conflicts arose, rather than running away as he once did.  Through it all, Ben loved Poe the way he, at sixteen years old, had sworn he would: forever, with all his heart.

And, of course, they lived happily ever after.

\--

The End


End file.
